The clock is running out
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The clock is running out |
| Original title | Ransom |
| Country of production | UK , USA |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1974 |
| length | 97 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Caspar Wrede |
| script | Paul Wheeler |
| production | Peter Rawley |
| music | Jerry Goldsmith |
| camera | Sven Nykvist |
| cut | Eric Boyd-Perkins |
| occupation | |
| |
The clock is running out is a thriller by Finnish director Caspar Wrede from 1974 .
action
The internationally wanted terrorist Martin Shepherd, who carried out a series of bomb attacks in London , raids the British embassy in the fictional country of Scandinavia with some accomplices and takes the diplomat Gerald Palmer and his staff hostages and holds them prisoner in Palmer's residence. The terrorists are demanding that six fellow campaigners imprisoned in Scandinavia be exchanged for Palmer. In order to enable them to find their way to freedom, a second squad of (alleged) terrorists, led by Ray Petrie, kidnapped a 100-passenger plane into the Scandinavian capital. With the presence of mind, the pilot lands the plane so roughly that a complicated repair of the landing gear holds up the terrorists longer than planned. The plane is now on a remote taxiway and Petrie requests that he get in touch with Martin Shepherd. He convinces him that his group and the hostages can flee with the hijacked aircraft, not with a military aircraft as originally planned.
The head of the Scandinavian security service, Colonel Nils Tahlvik, wants to take an uncompromising position but is overruled by the governments of Scandinavia and Great Britain, which insist that all terrorists' demands be met.
Tahlvik and his group make several attempts to thwart the terrorists' plans, but without success. At the last minute, Tahlvik states that the "terrorists" on the plane are in fact British intelligence agents trying to capture Martin Shepherd and that British officials are misleading the Scandinavian authorities and undermining Tahlvik's efforts to apprehend the two terrorist groups. Shortly before the aircraft takes off, he manages to get on board. He reveals that the alleged hijacker Ray Petrie is an undercover agent of the British who, on behalf of London, is supposed to fight the terrorists with their own means. This leads to a shootout between the two groups, at the end of which both Shepherd and Petrie are dead.
production
The production cost was approximately $ 1.5 million. Most of the film was shot at Oslo Fornebu Airport . The aircraft in focus was a Boeing 737-200 of the Norwegian airline Mey-Air . The film premiered on March 14, 1974 in London. In the United States, the film was called The Terrorists .
Trivia
A narrow time range is set for the framework for the central action. Clocks are therefore regularly shown close-up in the film; on the part of the kidnappers, there are models from the Omega Speedmaster Professional Mark II series, one of which acts as a time fuse.
reception
"Technically solid action thriller, which treats the current topic too expansively, fantastic and superficially."
Web links
- The clock runs in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The clock runs atRotten Tomatoes(English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The clock is running out. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 17, 2017 .