Film

North Sea Hijack (1979)

Director: Andrew V McLaglen

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

It's a wonder that the SNP ('It's Scotland's oil') never thought of this one, it's so simple: hold HM Government to ransom by threatening to blow up a drilling rig and a production platform. Where North Sea Hijack fails is that it takes a potentially convincing idea, then completely undermines it by subjecting it to shallow treatment. The Navy, represented by tired Admiral James ('I wish I sailed') Mason, is beaten before it starts, and it's left to free enterprise (Moore) to save the coffers of the nation. He is a freelance commando chappie, against whose ice-cool nerve (he does petit-point) the hijackers haven't a chance... and neither does the film. With more imagination, more of Faith Brook's send-up of a well-known lady PM, and less of Moore's excruciatingly smug misogyny, this might just have made it to comic levels.

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