North Sea Hijack

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Worth watching once, but if I had to choose between rewatching North Sea Hijack or going to see a firework display on a very rainy night. The only character I wasn't keen on was Perkin's deputy who would cackle like a pantomime villain at each of his boss's threats. McLaglen with star Roger Moore who had worked together on ¨The Wild Geese¨ , they would work together again on ¨The Sea Wolves¨, their third and final movie together. One of the interesting things here is we never do learn just what the escape plan for the hijackers is. Despite a seemingly low budget and predictable 'action' sequences, it's worth seeing this film just to listen to the great lines Moore delivers.

The best thing about this film is Roger Moore's main character, the misogynistic cat lover Rufus Excalibur ffolkes. Moore is particularly entertaining as a curmudgeon of a man who openly dislikes women, loves cats, Scottish booze, and needlepoint. Here in America we well remember the Exxon Valdez and the results of that oil spill off the Alaska shores. I don't think that the casting of Anthony Perkins was too obvious, I think he brought complications to a simply drawn character.His final moments in the movie have since become a tiresome cliché of such thrillers but, when the movie was new, his last scene was a startling surprise. He's on a North Sea oil platform where Lou Kramer, a clever criminal (Anthony Perkins) who has hijacked the supply boat Esther which is moored below, has demanded 25 million British pounds or he'll blow the rig sky high. Ffolks is a misogynistic man who dislike of women due to a failed marriage and having several sisters as opposed to being a ladies man; being moody, cranky and cantankerous .

Supporting roles are played by James Mason and David Hedison, who played Bond's American CIA sidekick Felix Leiter two times. North Sea Hijack (released as ffolkes outside the UK and as Assault Force on US TV [1]) is a 1980 British adventure film starring Roger Moore, Lea Brodie, [2] James Mason, Anthony Perkins and Michael Parks.Somewhat similar to Robert Shaw's great subway hijacker in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Perkins's Kramer is in it for the money only, takes few chances, and anticipates problems several steps ahead of everyone else. The picture will appeal to Roger Moore fans , an old master in the art of conjuring sympathy out of nothing .

Reluctantly, the Prime Minister (Faith Brook) and Naval operations supervisor Admiral Brindsen (James Mason), in consultation with insurer Lloyds of London, agree to ffolkes's daring plan to retake the platforms. Ingenious, conceited, and menacing as Kramer is, Perkins doesn't have as much to work with in his characterization as Moore.The story centers around Rufus Excalibur (Moore); a heavy drinking, confident, cocky and intelligent specialist. If the British Crown refuses to fork over, Kramer threatens to blast Esther, Ruth and Jennifer, along with himself and his henchmen, and more than 600 innocent people aboard the rigs and ship off the face of the earth. In his autobiography, Sir Roger Moore wrote that at one point, the crew tried to sedate several of the lively cats that belonged to his character, without actor and cat lover James Mason discovering the scheme.