I remember seeing this film on TV when I was a teenager. I have just seen it again 20 years on and like me it has aged. As one reviewer says the characters are a microcosm of society and it is a world I wouldn't want to live in. The cop, the expert, the bank manager are unbelievably rude, bullying, and cruelly insensitive. The acting is poor and hardly credible. Even Sean Connery chews his dialogue (on this showing it seems a marvel that he reinvented himself as James Bond only four years later). The boy is as wooden as a barn door with his repeated "Yes, Daddy." He even grins at the camera at one point. Surely they could have found someone of Dean Stockwell's or Pamela Franklin's abilities. The parents are predictably bland, the mother plays the hysterical part as usual. Beatty is OK as the main star and dominates as he should but his bullying of the volunteers is over the top and uncalled for. Someone ought to have given him a bloody nose after all the fuss was over. As for the bank manager his forelock was hanging down more or less from the start.
The situation was promising and there is no doubt that the film is exciting, especially the use of statistics to heighten the tension. Unfortunately the performances let it down and the dialogue is at times laughable (perhaps the future "Carry On" director was getting some practice in). Also it doesn't seem credible that when the radio man said he wanted to put the story on the news that it didn't occur to the cop or the bank manager to tell him to use the stations to locate the expert. Instead this idea came from the journalist about three minutes later. Again the cop calculates the car journey time for the expert to get to the bank when my first thought would have been to get him on a helicopter. Again someone else suggested this. The selection for the hammering is like something out of the keystone cops. When the priest turned up, I thought, who next, the one-armed bandit? Why is the film based in North America, when it was made at Beaconsfield? The time bomb plot is usually handled better and the director makes a real mess of the tension. The film has sadly dated - but it is always watchable, even allowing for the shoddy direction and acting.
The situation was promising and there is no doubt that the film is exciting, especially the use of statistics to heighten the tension. Unfortunately the performances let it down and the dialogue is at times laughable (perhaps the future "Carry On" director was getting some practice in). Also it doesn't seem credible that when the radio man said he wanted to put the story on the news that it didn't occur to the cop or the bank manager to tell him to use the stations to locate the expert. Instead this idea came from the journalist about three minutes later. Again the cop calculates the car journey time for the expert to get to the bank when my first thought would have been to get him on a helicopter. Again someone else suggested this. The selection for the hammering is like something out of the keystone cops. When the priest turned up, I thought, who next, the one-armed bandit? Why is the film based in North America, when it was made at Beaconsfield? The time bomb plot is usually handled better and the director makes a real mess of the tension. The film has sadly dated - but it is always watchable, even allowing for the shoddy direction and acting.