No.228 : The Outpost (2020)

 

The Outpost at the IMDb

This film likes its captions. You get a few screens of scene setting information before the film starts, telling the viewer about the base in question, located in darkest Afghanistan. They tells us that an analyst described it as a place where no one would survive an attack and then you get a caption telling you about every character and location within the camp. Frankly it got a bit distracting and there was no way I was going to remember the names of the twenty odd captioned characters anyway.

Fair enough the film is “Based on a True Story” so authenticity is important, but show, don’t tell! Anyway the film is basically a modern day ‘Zulu’ with an out numbered group of American soldiers facing off against the Taliban legions who besiege their poorly positioned camp.

The film opens with random insurgents taking post shots at the base. The American mortars take care of the threat and head honcho Orlando Bloom, dusting off his ‘Black Hawk Down’ accent, goes about his business of running the camp. He has the usual misfits to deal with but soon has other things on his mind like a severe lack of roads. With Orlando out of the picture a new officer takes charge and his guided tour gives us another chance to reacquaint ourselves with all details of the camp and staff - I was worried that there was going to be a test!

After half an hour, with visits to the local tribes going well, with some rifles surrendered, we know it’s all about to kick off big style. We meet with the five commanders of the base over the course of the film with their section predictably introduced with a caption.

The headline battle starts about an hour into the film and lasts pretty much to the end. It is stirring stuff with acts of heroism shown alongside cowardice and multiple explosions. Some of the characters we meet don’t make it and others step up in the face of adversity. I didn’t know of this battle before watching the film so it was genuinely exciting although I did have a good idea how things would pan out.

Overall this was an good film that borrowed from several better films. Most military clichés were trotted out with things like the worrier overcoming his doubts and the old favoutites of getting ammo to the front and the taking out of a troublesome sniper all present and correct. They even had that bit out of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ where Hanks’ pistol blows up a tank and then he realises that the explosion was in fact the result of his long awaited air strike.

The action cost the lives of eight US servicemen and untold numbers of Taliban cannon fodder. It therefore didn’t have the body count of many other war films and they did well to have you invest in the characters with a long preamble. The closing captions (natch) outlined that the base was an accident waiting to happen but that didn’t detract from the brave actions of the soldiers, with those killed in action being shown in photos  as their true selves along side footage of the actors who portrayed them.

Like ‘Blackhawk Down’ the film depicted what would probably be described as a bad day for the military, but the spirit and sacrifice of the men made it a positive experience.

The Afghan action was actually filmed in Bulgaria but no expense was spared in terms of the spectacle and destruction depicted on screen. It may not be the best war film you’ll see but it was a worthy one, with great action and a lot of information given to keep you informed. Maybe even too much!

THE Tag Line : Zulu 2 : The Afghan Years  68%

No.215 : The Driver (1978)

The Driver at the IMDb

One of the better known definitive films now, as we delve into this noirish 1978 effort, that sees Ryan O’Neal’s titular driver takes on Brue Dern’s Detective.

I hadn’t seen this in a while and it struck me by how much style wins over substance. The film is relatively short at 91 minutes, and large sections of that are taken up with car chases or moody silences. O’Neal doesn’t say a word for the first 15 minutes and only has 350 words of wisdom in the whole film - dark and moody type you understand.

The film opens with a casino heist and the ensuing car chase get away. More cop cars get trashed than in a ‘Blues Brothers’ marathon but our man gets away. The criminals he’s working with were late and won’t see Ryan on anther job as a result. His rules have kept him out of prison so far. This time however there is a witness, and manic cop Dern is keen to collar ‘The Cowboy’, as he calls O’Neal due to his love of Country & Western music.

The witness fails to pick O’Neal from a line up but we later learn that she’s been paid off to provide O’Neal with an alibi. The witness, played by Isabelle Adjani, doesn’t say much either and prefers to stare a lot.

Dern decides that he won’t catch O’Neal by playing fair so after capturing a hapless trio of robbers he offers them a deal - one more job with O’Neil as the driver and they can walk away. This generous offer is accepted despite the protests of Dern’s underlings - is he becoming obsessed? You bet.

The robbery goes down, but there are double crosses and bag switches galore before we learn who, if anyone, is going to drive off into the sunset.

Directed by Walter Hill this film is a lot like his next project ‘The Warriors’ although not as good. O’Neil tries to do broody and interesting but he and Adjani look like they have lost their scripts in most of their scenes, with you almost shouting at the screen for them to spit it out. Dern is better as the obsessed policeman and no one can out stare him in what is largely a staring contest throughout.

Of course all the memorable scenes are the car chases and you get two good ones for your money as well as a Merc getting trashed in a parking garage -  and a bus ride too. I did get a sense that the footage had been sped up somewhat but the pace was excellent, with a real sense of danger. New York City planners should however be criticised for having a large ramp on every corner that flips cars over - that’s plain dangerous.

With very little script and no romance this is a slight affair, but there are enough good scenes in the short run time to keep you occupied. You don’t buy into any of the characters and no back-story or even real names are offered. I think the film was trying to be a sort of parable or morality tale, with the characters irredeemable and all wearing the same clothes throughout, like they are characters from a comic book.

Not one that will live long in the memory once the tyre screeching has dissipated but some excellent driving stunts make it all worthwhile.

THE Tag Line - Drive Don’t Talk!  68%

No.140 : The Double (2013)

The Double at the IMDb

More double trouble now as we follow Richard Gere’s double agent misadventures with a more literal double. Who will win the Double Duel? Probably this one as Gere was gash.

This is a bit more art house than we are used to on The Definite Article Blog, with the film being an adaptation of the book of the same name by Dostoevsky. Don’t worry, it’s directed by and stars most of ‘The I.T. Crowd’ so how high brow can it be? The answer is ‘reasonably’ as things like metaphor and symbolism crop up, meaning we have to pay attention, lest we look a bit thick.

Jesse Eisenberg stars as James a clerk in a dystopian workhouse where he inputs data for seemingly no purpose. The drones all work for James Fox’s Colonel who, although cheery in his TV ads, seems a bit sinister. James’ immediate boss, Mr Papadopolous, doesn’t know his name - ‘Inconceivable!’ (it’s the guy out of ‘The Princess Bride’!) - but asks him to tutor his punk daughter in the ways of the company.

James however is more interested in co-worker Hannah but is too shy to ask for a date, instead settling on going through her rubbish to reconstruct her ripped up art. He also has a mother in a care home where everyone is armed and Sidekick Simon is head orderly.

James’ dull but predictable life is upset when a new worker, Simon starts. He is Simon James whilst our man is James Simon. That’s not the worst of it - they are exactly alike in looks and clothes, the only difference being is that Simon is a hit with the ladies and basically everything James is not on the personality front.

Despite some initial friction the two start to work together with James doing Simon’s work and Simon giving James coaching in the ways of love. Slowly the two seem to merge with injuries to one manifesting on the other. The lines get blurred and it’s not always clear who is who. Could they be one and the same? Is this a lesson in duality and in the different personalities that inhabit us all? What will the end game be? Who’ll get the girl, and does it really matter?

I quite liked this film but it was heavy going in places and seemed long even at its trim 90 minutes running time. The bleak world was well realised with more than a few nods given and debts owed to Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’. The grey and beige world had an Eastern European feel, and the pointless work in the crumbling office was well observed. The cast were uniformly good, playing deadpan at ridiculous set ups and in pointless exchanges. The whole tone was one of claustrophobia and oppression and you were keen to escape this world as soon as possible - I don’t think I’ll be buying the DVD!

The only bright spot was  an adventure show on TV with Paddy Considine as a kick-ass hero. This was lifted wholesale from ‘Storm Saxon’ in ‘V for Vendetta’ but it was good fun. It was also enjoyable to see Chris Morris, Chris O’Dowd and Tim Key pop up in small but funny roles. All played against type as faceless bureaucrats keen only to get their form completed and filed away.

The film was generally unsettling but an interesting essay on the nature of self and the duality that exists within us all. If that sounds a bit like student wankery don’t blame me - the film started it!

THE Tag Line - Twice the Jesses - Double the fun 68%

No. 132 : The Hand (1981)

The Hand @ the IMDb

 “What a pile of shit” Michael Caine declares midway through this schlock horror nightmare - whether he was talking about the production is unclear but such words would be a bit harsh. Just a bit though.

Caine plays Jon Lansdale a successful newspaper comic strip artist whose creation ‘Mandro’ pays for a nice life with an unfeasibly young, and new age wife. Lansdale is a bit of a dick from the off and enjoys yelling at his wife whilst she is driving him to the shops. This ends badly for him however as his drawing hand is lopped off by a passing truck as he tries to wave a car back. This scene was fantastically realised as the hand goes flying and Caine, covered in blood, starts screaming - possibly at his agent.

Time passes and soon the stumpefied Caine is getting fitted for a prosthetic that looks like it has been salvaged from a terminator. He suspects his wife is getting a bit too close to her yoga instructor and his agent is keen to let a young artist take over his strip. Caine meanwhile is having trouble adapting to his new single hand life and has flashbacks about the incident whilst pondering about the fate of his hand, that was never found.

With wife trouble escalating Caine heads off for a teaching job in California where he can talk to bored students and brood in his lonely log cabin. Things look up however when a young student shows up at his home and takes her clothes off - clearly a wavy hair / stump fetishist.

Despite trading the wife in for a younger and less annoying model Caine keeps spiraling further into madness and we wonder if the black and white flashbacks of the disembodied hand killing a tramp are for real or just his frenzied imagination at work.

With the wife ready to take their daughter away and his bit on the side having gone missing we have to guess if Caine is doing all the murders or is the disembodied hand really the culprit?

Despite my better judgement I enjoyed ‘The Hand’. It’s rubbish but it knows it’s rubbish and doesn’t pretend otherwise. Caine is manic throughout with his hairstyle getting ever madder as an insight to his mental state. The hand is well done and despite people clearly holding it on whilst it strangles them it’s a good laugh to see it scuttling about the place.

The film does stretch itself somewhat with a final wrong foot but as a study of madness and loss it is well done and it has a few unintended laughs peppered throughout, which adds to its appeal.

This was an early directorial outing for Oliver Stone before he got all political and for pure enjoyment purposes I’d put it up there with his best. Caine is of course working for the pay cheque but he gives it his all and is happy to go deep with the murder and sex scenes, despite the ridiculousness of each.

THE Tag Line : Give it a big hand! 68%

No.119 : The Sandpiper (1965)

The Sandpiper at the IMDb

 Richard Burton and Liz Taylor star in this 1960s drama that sees him as a priest wrestling with his conscience and her as an artist struggling to keep herself in a succession of tight outfits.

The film opens with a young lad shooting a fawn with an air gun as his bohemian mother Liz paints on the beach below. We cut to the judge’s office and learn that the killing is the boy’s third offence in a few months. Liz as a maverick single mother defends her son’s right to explore his emotions but the judge is having none of it and demands the boy goes to Burton’s reform school.

We meet Burton in his priestly garb as he discusses his plans for the boy. No, not like that - he’s married and we are sure there is a spark from the off with the bra-less mother. Burton engineers excuses to visit Liz’s Big Sur beach house and is impressed when she tapes up a sandpiper’s broken wing with tape and a straw. As a metaphor the bird with a broken wing is a bit clumsy but we hope it will fly again - a bit like the buttoned down Burton.

Liz initially plays the horny headmaster along and discusses her plans as she modestly poses for her sculptor friend Charles Bronson. She does however soon fall for the pent up priest and soon the pair embark on a passionate affair. Burton’s life is complicated by his wife and the investors he’s pumping for a new chapel.

As the sandpiper gets ready to fly the coop Burton has to decide where his loyalties lie and whether Liz’s beach shack is worth giving up his cassock and twin setted wife. Liz meanwhile is starting to sell her art off the back of her notoriety - will she up sticks to San Francisco and take her annoying son out of Burton’s school? Does she love the potent priest or is he a means to an end?

Despite a screeching trumpet lead soundtrack I enjoyed this tale of passion and morals. Liz and Burton certainly crackle on the screen and this is possibly the only film of hers where Liz is genuinely curvy and sexy. She doesn’t quite convince as the carefree beach dweller but as least she’s better than ‘sculptor’ Charlie Bronson - c’mon Charlie get that gun out and get back to work!

Burton’s transformation from devout preacher and husband to attendee of beatnik parties is well done although the relationship does always seem a bit out of kilter of what we know about the characters. The metaphor of the bird is heavy handed with Burton keen to fly away from the responsibilities of his job and life in general.

The Californian beach settings are great and the film has a sixties vibe of free love that is always clawing away at the stuck up morals of the church and its elders. The couple never really win over our sympathies with him being a hypocrite and her being a slut with an agenda. As the pieces come to rest you have to wonder if it was worth it but I guess that’s the point of the whole affair.

THE Tag Line : Bronson Gets Wood!  68%

No.86 : The Breed (2006)

The Breed at the IMDb

Feeling a bit wuff? Well then, ‘The Breed’ may just be the film for you.

We open with a young couple on a yacht having a super time in the wide blue sea. They spot an island and decide to have a look - Huge mistake! While the bloke ties up the boat the girl runs off to find a bar but instead finds a big fence with ominous looking equipment poking out from within. She heads off but is soon chased by an unknown assailant and is quickly caught and pulled off camera by an unseen but snarling attacker.

We then cut to a group of college kids in a seaplane heading towards the same island. We learn a rich yuppie type has inherited the house that some of them holidayed in as kids, and they’ve brought some friends along for some pre-exam partying. After some unnecessary but highly enjoyable frolicking about in bikinis we get down to business as a blonde hottie gets nipped by a stray dog. A medical student tells her she will be OK as rabies will take a week to develop, but she’s soon getting horny and ‘feeling great’ which is usually movie shorthand for ‘possessed by monsters’.

The bloodied bloke from the yacht appears to warn them that ‘the dogs don’t want you here’ before being mercilessly chomped by a pack of mutts that look more ‘Crufts’ than junkyard. The kids take refuge in their cabin, after one gets an arrow in the leg from a friend who’s not so much ‘Green Arrow’ as ‘Crap at Archery’. The kids recall a local attack dog school (on a deserted island?) but it was closed down after a rabies outbreak - could these be refugee mutts driven insane by a strain of rabies? And why are the dogs drawn to the bitten girl, even after she puts on clothes and starts to get all weird?

These are some smart poochies and once they send the seaplane out to sea they terrorise the kids as they try to outsmart the ferocious Fidoes. As you’d expect the kids start to get picked off in a variety of dog based methods including an inventive ‘death by merry-go-round’. Soon we are down to three survivors and they manage to get an old car working - where better to head than the dog experiment laboratory? Who will survive and will the bitten maintain their ‘doggy instincts’ and will they be house trained?

‘The Breed’ is a workmanlike thriller with nothing new to say but it’s still good fun all the same. The premise is slight with the synopsis basically being ‘sexy kids fight killer dogs’ but you can’t say it is aimed at the high brow market. The cast are mostly unknowns with only Michelle Rodriguez being a familiar face and indeed body. This works well as you’ve no idea who is likely to survive given the low star profiles on offer.

The threat level is mild throughout with a severe biting the worst fate offered. To get in the range of the jaws a few unlikely scenarios are worked into the script with a handy zip line offering plenty of dangling opportunities. The origins of the threat are barely touched upon with a rack of test tubes offered as definitive proof of evil scientists at work.

The dogs themselves seem well trained but lack any real evil or frothing jaws. They take a few hits themselves with a few hot dogs thinning their numbers. Obviously they can’t hurt real dogs so their actual deaths happen off camera with whines and whelps dubbed on to show it’s one up for the good guys.

This was a fast paced 90 minutes and it certainly kept my interest. The film offered mild peril, some bikinied lovelies and a few inventive deaths - you could do a lot worse!

THE Tag Line - Doggone It’s OK!  68%

No.66 : The Bravados (1958)

The Bravados on IMDb

Gregory Peck and Joan Collins are the unlikely stars of this 1958 colour western.

Peck plays Jim Douglas, a rancher with revenge in mind. We open with him approaching a small town and being warned off by a guard - the sheriff don’t want no strangers in town, see. Despite this warm welcome Peck finagles his way in after the sheriff marks him down as a pervert with a thing for hangings. The small town is having a four man hanging event the next day and all they need is the travelling hangman to show up so the show can go ahead.

Peck offers to help out but is soon boozing in the bar with Joan Collins. Collins looking well senior of her actual 25 years at the time of filming is an old flame of Peck's and is disappointed to hear that he’s married with a child. Slowly we learn that our man is a widower and that the four men due to be hung are those he has marked as responsible. With the hangman now arrived things should go smoothly - but wait! While the townsfolk, including a reluctant Peck, are at church the bogus hangman springs the four bad guys and the chase is on.

Peck organises the posse and soon they start to catch up with the felons. The bad guys make the classic mistake of splitting up, and it doesn’t take long for the remorseless Peck to thin their number to one. Can he put to rest his demons, and are his motivations just and indeed correct?

This is an enjoyable western that doesn’t attempt to do anything new with the genre. The jail break and chase are all you’d expect with some brutality from Peck notwithstanding. His moral ambiguity towards the end is in sharp counterpoint to the cheering townsfolk who care little about what exactly the bad guys did just as long as they did something.

Peck is excellent as the driven Douglas and looks to be doing his own stunt riding and lasso work. He cuts a mean figure in black and he’s pretty no nonsense with the pleading bad guys. His mask slips towards the end as the doubts set in but at least he’s rewarded with the lovely Joan who seems very keen.

Joan’s character is ill defined and it’s not clear if she’s meant to be American or English - or indeed Spanish as she shows up for church in a red flamenco dress. Her acting is consistent throughout - consistently awful that is. She doesn’t convince at any level and looks like a refugee from a make up commercial who wandered on set. Her emotions go from ‘Just let them go’ to ‘Kill them all’ in literally one scene and it’s not hard to see why her career floundered for many years, until she started taking her clothes off.

Of the remaining cast there wasn’t a lot standing out apart from a young Lee Van Cleef who wasn’t quite at his moustache twirling best. The horny escapee didn’t convince nor did their purty hostage who did little more than scream a lot.

The locations were fantastic and used to great effect in some panning shots that showed the difficulties the trackers faced.

The big reveal at the end was signalled from the off but if you watch this as a simple ‘posse’ film you’ll enjoy it, although I doubt it will stay long in the memory.

THE Tag Line - Kill ‘em all and let God sort them out - 68%

No. 61 : The American (2010)

The American at the IMDb

George Clooney stars in this decent but somewhat predictable thriller.

We open with a bearded George in a log cabin, next to a frozen lake with a beautiful lady. So far so Roger Moore James Bond. A romantic walk in the winter landscape is interrupted when they spot some footprints in the snow, and pretty soon the happy couple are taking fire from a frankly rubbish sniper. George shows he’s not to be messed with when he shoots the shooter before taking out his girlfriend with a shot to the back of the head - guess she shouldn’t have eaten the last croissant!

 After clearing out the rest of the hit squad George gets onto his handler, one of those stereotype softly spoken bad guys who operates out of a café. He tells George to head off to a remote village, but showing the kind of caution that has kept him alive George ditches the Boss issued mobile and heads off on his own.

So begins a short round of the fish out of water scenario as the gorgeous one tries to blend in using his ‘photographer’ story as flimsy cover. He’s quickly befriended by a well meaning but flawed priest who sees that George isn’t what he seems. After checking in with the Boss we learn that George is a gun smith and he’s been given a new job of preparing a custom sniper rifle for a female assassin.

All the while George is boffing a lovely prostitute who quickly falls for his silvery charms and starts to see him ‘off the clock’. As the relationship deepens the always nervous George becomes the target of some assassins, none of whom can match our hero’s guile. As the weapon nears completion George begins to plan his exit strategy.

We all know you can never walk away from the bad guy organisation but will the hooker with a heart and his gunship skills see a possible way for him to reach redemption?

I quite enjoyed this film but it’s really nothing new or inventive. Early on you get the sense that George is doomed and you just wonder how he got so old and grey in such a trigger happy organisation. His past isn’t really touched on apart from a ‘Marines’ tattoo and it seems a strange vocation to be drilling bullets for assassins given his skills set.

Part of the problem is George’s trademark look that doesn’t falter throughout the film. He’s certainly not after the ‘chameleon’ tag, with his look in this film indistinguishable to his in ‘Michael Clayton’ ‘Up in the Air’ and, if you draped an untied bow tie around his neck, all of the ‘Ocean’s’ films. It’s not necessarily a bad thing as he clearly plays to his strengths but given he lives in Italy you are left to wonder if they filmed this when a spare couple of weeks came up in his diary.

The twists were seen a mile off and when you hear that the assassin’s target is a mystery and you see George making her bullets it’s not hard to put two and two together. The film was filled out with a ropey priest with a sex scandal past - is there any other kind?! The romance also didn’t ring true at all with the hooker at first refusing to kiss, but once George gives her a good seeing to, she’s ready to run away with him five minutes later.

The locations were pretty good but somewhat restricted to a small town which again gives the air of a tight production with little scope. George is as reliable as ever and his girl friend certainly brightens up the screen. The lady assassin didn’t convince as a ruthless killer and she even looked a bit ham-fisted when she was ‘expertly’ handling her weaponry. The closing scenes play out pretty much as you’d expect and although somewhat unsatisfying there was enough to keep my interest to the end - mainly to see if I’d guessed right - I had!

Best Bit : George spends his hard earned ‘relaxing’. 68%

No.59 : The Transporter (2002)

The Transporter at the IMDb

Here’s a bit of brainless pap to augment all the other brainless pap that we’ve been watching lately. Jason ‘I’m not bald’ Statham stars as Frank, the titular action hero whose efforts spawned a surprising two sequels - five if you count the ‘Crank’ franchise where he changes his name to Chav, and that’s it.

The film opens with a decent action scene as our hero plays wheel man for a hapless bunch of bank robbers. He has a nice use for a real transporter and leaves his employers somewhat happy with their escape. He refuses to drop them off however as it would violate one of his three rules - a topic he never tires of banging on about. Later, at home, he hears on the news the first time in history that a gang of criminals has been caught due to “bad driving”. Frank cares not - his strict adherence to his rules has saved his bacon once again. Remember that - might be important later.

As he relaxes at his palatial, and let’s not forget ill gotten, home Frank is visited by the local fuzz; the most laid back and non-threatening French copper this side of Clouseau. Due to poor acting we’re not too sure if he likes Frank or is totally incompetent but he’s soon on his way appeased by Jason’s charmless grin.

Soon Jason has another lucrative job - this time a package delivery. He doesn’t ask any questions but when a flat tyre causes him to open his boot he finds the package wiggling about and decides to buy it a drink. As you’d expect the package is a beautiful Chinese lady. Jason goes through with the delivery but when the baddies blow up his prized car he soon heads back to get his no claims discount reinstated.

The bad guys are involved in people smuggling and soon Jason and the Chinese lady team up for some sex and then to take down the bad guys. We move from stunt to stunt before the inevitable showdown with the sinister Oriental head honcho who happens to be the lovely’s Dad. Can Jason survive in time to make all the sequels?

Seeing as this is filed under ‘nonsense’ it’d hardly be fair to critisise it for being far fetched or ridiculous. Of course it is and that’s what keeps the pot smoking action junkies demanding more and more of this tosh. I liked it too.

The film has quite a European look and feel which is no surprise seeing as Luc Besson takes the writing credits, as they are. There is a lot of low to the ground action stuff and in your face fights and although stuff gets blown up you’ll never make the mistake of thinking you’ve wandered into some big budget Hollywood thriller. Which is a good thing.

The cast apart from Statham don’t speak English as their first language and I’m not even sure about him. The lead baddie is a terrible menace and exudes all the threat of last night’s Egg Fu Yung. The girl is a bit better but she doesn’t have the sexiness of say Michelle Yeoh and certainly doesn’t convince in the high kicking stakes.

The stunts are better with a few funny fist fights thrown in for good measure - the garage one in the oil is so homo erotic you almost expect Alan Carr to run in. There is enough going on to keep you interested although to call the plot wafer thin would be enough to give a wafer an eating disorder. Pretty much what you’d expect really.

THE Tag Line : Transporter Takes You Away from Reality 68%

No.13 : The Deep (1977)

The Deep at the IMDb

If you mention ‘The Deep’ to most people the first thing they’ll mention will be Jacqueline Bisset’s wet t-shirt, that appears in the opening scene. Well maybe not the t-shirt itself, but you get the idea. This is a bit of a shame as the slight titillation is over after the first five minutes and if you expect any more you’ve got a dull two hours coming your way.

The film is set in Bermuda and opens with 8 dialogue free minutes and Bisset as Nick Nolte enjoy a bit of scuba diving. It’s all jolly stuff, and not a little Jacques Cousteau , but soon we get down to the nitty gritty of scrabbling about in the dirt for some stuff. Nolte finds an innocuous ampoule bottle which is brushed over too quickly to be insignificant and then a medallion to go with his hairy chest.

Back at the beach they make the mistake of showing the scuba rental guy their finds as pretty soon word has gotten to local ‘bottle collector’ Louis Gossett who shows up at their dinner table. They suspect he’s not revealing all and this is confirmed the next day when he kidnaps them and strips Jacqueline bare (no, sorry) while searching for the loot. They had unknowingly been relieved of the bottle the night before by Robert Shaw, a local salty dog treasure hunter who lives in a lighthouse, like you do.

They return to trade notes and find that the bottle is in fact morphine from a sunken world war two warship. Gossett is keen for the drugs and doesn’t mind a bit of voodoo or cat nailing to get it. Added to the mix is Adam Coffin a survivor of the warship who can be bought for a bottle of rum and a gang of henchmen on both sides who make the WWF look like the best actor nominees.

We soon find out that the drugs have landed on top of an old galleon full of treasure and the race is on to salvage the goodies and keep the drugs off the streets.

This is a strange mix of a film. In some scenes it’s like something from Disney’s world of nature and in the next a man is getting an outboard motor stuck in his face. The characters are all thinly drawn with the baddies particularly crummy, with a ‘boo hiss’ complimenting every appearance. There are some elements of subterfuge, with it left unclear for a while whose side Shaw is on, but you are never really in much doubt. Eli Wallach as Coffin does a decidedly poor turn as the embittered lackey, keen to switch sides but it was good to see he hadn’t shaved since ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly‘.

Shaw seemingly took the job for the money and I doubt a few months in Bermuda hurt either. That said he died the following year so maybe all that voodoo bobbins worked after all! He seemed to do his own diving in the film although it was strange that he does it in his shirt and trousers - must have forgotten his swimming costume.

Nolte and Bisset didn’t have much chemistry and their love scene are wisely kept to a minimum. With her plumy accent and his bad acting it was always going to be a tough match. Louis Gossett (no ‘Jnr,’ here) is still five years away from his ‘Officer and a Gentleman’ Oscar and it shows in his totally menace free offering. He tries to use moody silences as threats but I kept thinking he’d lost his script. He does however get some redemption points for possibly the best demise in cinema - ouch!

It is kind of hard to dislike this film with it’s sunny sets and bikini girls running around. The threat is mild but there are some good fights and the sea life is cracking. If you don’t need any deep thinking ‘The Deep’ may just rise to the occasion for you.

THE Tag Line : Deep Shit? No, it’s actually not that bad. 68%