Juggernaut (film)

Infobox_Film
name = Juggernaut


caption= original film poster
imdb_id = 0071706
writer = Richard Alan Simmons as Richard DeKoker,
Alan Plater
starring = Richard Harris,
Omar Sharif,
David Hemmings,
Anthony Hopkins,
Shirley Knight,
Ian Holm,
Clifton James
director = Richard Lester
producer = Richard Alan Simmons as Richard DeKoker
distributor = United Artists
released = Sep 25, 1974
runtime = 109 min.
language = English
music = |Ken Thorne
budget = n/a

"Juggernaut" is a British entry into the 1970s disaster film cycle. It was produced by David V. Picker Productions and released in 1974 by United Artists. The film was directed by Richard Lester, who took over after directors Bryan Forbes and Don Taylor each left the project in pre-production.

On taking over the film, Lester completely rewrote the script with writer Alan Plater, as he recounts to biographer Andrew Yule. Producer/Writer Richard Alan Simmons, unhappy with the new script, had himself credited as Richard DeKoker on the finished film.

The film was shot mainly aboard a real ocean liner. The "Hamburg" had recently been sold by its German owners to the Soviet Union. Before the Soviets began operating the liner for paying passengers, they rented it to the film company.

The liner was painted in the livery of a fictional shipping line, very similar to the livery used by the Soviet Morpasflot line, and renamed the "Britannic". Advertisements were run in British papers, soliciting extras who would take a lengthy cruise in the North Sea for free, but with the knowledge that the ship would actually seek out the worst possible weather, as the story demanded seas too rough for the lifeboats to be lowered, trapping the passengers on board.

Because the rental of the liner was negotiated as oil prices skyrocketed in February 1974, the Soviets ended up losing money on the deal.

Plot summary

The story revolves around a fictitious cruise liner, the SS "Britannic". When the ship is in the middle of the Atlantic, the owner of the shipping line, (Ian Holm), receives a phone call from a man with a lilting Irish accent who refers to himself only as Juggernaut. Juggernaut tells Porter he has placed seven barrels of amatol (high explosive) aboard the "Britannic" that will explode and sink the ship by noon the following day. The barrels are booby-trapped and any attempt to defuse them will result in an explosion. Details of how to render the bombs safe will be sent in exchange for a ransom of five hundred thousand pounds sterling. To show he is serious, Juggernaut arranges a demonstration, a series of small explosions on the "Britannic"'s bridge that seriously injures two crewmen. Porter is all for paying the ransom and saving the 1,200 passengers onboard (the seas are too rough to abandon ship). However, the British government informs Porter that if he pays the ransom, they will withdraw his company's operating subsidy. Instead, a bomb disposal expert, Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Fallon (Richard Harris) and his team must parachute into the Atlantic, board the "Britannic" and defuse the barrels before the deadline. Meanwhile, Supt. John McCleod (Anthony Hopkins), whose wife and two children are onboard the "Britannic" leads the efforts on land to find Juggernaut.

After an attempt to defuse one of the bombs by robot fails, Fallon goes to his backup plan. Fallon's team will defuse one barrel each. Fallon will defuse the first bomb, informing his men of each move. If he fails and the bomb explodes, his men will know what went wrong. However, if two more bombs go off, the ship will sink.

Alternate ending

Some people have reported that an alternate ending to the film was shot and originally shown in British cinemas, with the film ending in an explosion after the wrong wire was cut. If this alternate ending does exist, it does not appear on the DVD.