North Sea Hijack

Quite some time back, I read a review of an interesting-sounding movie called ffolkes, originally released in the UK as North Sea Hijack. I picked up the DVD under the ffolkes title, and not too long ago finally got around to watching it to do a review on here.

Roger Moore plays Rufus ffolkes, ex-military who is now working in counterterrorism and has what seems to be his own private unit. He consults for Lloyd's of London, the big insurance firm that will insure almost anything for a price. In this case, it's North Sea oil platforms, and how to keep these remote locations from being threatened.

Cut to the other side of the North Sea. Esther is a cargo ship that supplies various oil platforms in the North Sea. Kramer (Anthony Perkins) and Harold (Michael Parks) are part of a group of journalists doing a story on the oil rigs, which is how they're boarded on the Esther. Except that these guys aren't journalists; they're terrorists whose intent is to threaten the oil rigs for a huge ransom. They get to the main rig named Jennifer and attach magnetic mines to it, doing the same to Ruth, some miles away and supplied by Jennifer. They then demand a ransom of £25 million, to be paid out equally in five different currencies.

Needless to say, this is a national security issue, and the Prime Minister (Faith Brook) calls in the Admiralty. Admiral Brindsen (James Mason) thinks about getting Lloyd's to pay the ransom, which seems like a lousy idea. Fortunately for Brindsen, Lloyd's had been talking to ffolkes about how to deal with just the sort of threat the two oil platforms now face. ffolkes is called in, and he has a good idea what to do, even though he's not thrilled having to meet the Prime Minister because of his resentment of women.

The idea ffolkes has involves going to the platforms with Brindsen, from where they'll figure out a way to infiltrate the Esther. Meanwhile, back on the boat, the crew is trying to come up with ways to fight the terrorists who have taken over their boat, although their first idea doesn't work at all. One good idea ffolkes has come up with is to create a fake explosion that looks like it has destroyed Ruth: Kramer will see the explosion but won't see that Ruth has not in fact been destroyed; hopefully, it will buy time for ffolkes and Brindsen. Eventually, the ultimate plan is to send Brindsen and ffolkes over to the Esther in a sort of hostage exchange while ffolkes' divers can infiltrate the ship from below. But Kramer doesn't like ffolkes, threatning to bollix the whole operation.

ffolkes is in many ways a standard thriller of the era, although there's a lot to recommend it. Roger Moore was in the middle of his run as James Bond when he made this, but his character is changed to have a personality much different from Bond even if the the thriller aspects seem similar. Where Bond sleeps with women left and right, ffolkes has a thing against women and authority in general because of the way he was raised by some really nasty aunts. The irony, of course, is that the one female member of the Esther crew is going to wind up helping ffolkes at a key point in the climax.

The story of ffolkes works quite well, even if again there's not anything groundbreaking here. Moore, having played Bond, is able to do ffolkes easily, while Perkins is excellent as the head of the bad guys. James Mason's role is a supporting one, but he lends the appropriate gravitas to it. The rest of the supporting cast does just fine, and the twists and turns of the plot are more then entertaining.

So if you want another movie you can sit back and watch with a bowl of popcorn, ffolkes is one that definitely fits the bill.