FILMS… North Sea Hijack / ffolkes (1980)

#1980s #AllPosts

 

A ffolkes hero has the situation all sewn up…

 

A cat loving, whisky drinking, bearded misogynist and his frogmen take on some terrorists in a North Sea oil rig.

 

North Sea Hijack (A.K.A. Ffolkes U.S.) 1980-HD Converted Trailer, TheOriginalCamo AND PHOTOS © Universal / CIC

 

For the third of my 11-part Cinema Shame Movies posts this year, I’ve chosen to review the film North Sea Hijack (1980). This film is also known as ffolkes outside the UK and Assault Force on TV in the United States. After watching this Roger Moore classic 1980s film with Darlin Husband, I decided on the choice of film as a new favourite with Roger Moore.

We both remember Moore’s wonderfully eccentric character, Rufus Excalibur ffolkes (small letters intended).  As one of the three male acting leads, Moore is dream casting as this bearded, misogynist, counter-terrorism expert, Anthony Perkins as a kinda Psycho type terrorist and James Mason as a distinguished English Admiral.  And this drama unfolds in the North Sea.

Darlin Husband can impersonate 2 of these 3 fantastic actors, and I’m hoping he’s secretly working on the third. This makes his ad-libbing extra fun, especially for this movie with him parodying Moore one moment and Mason, the next.

He had recommended this film to me to review ages ago, yet for some bizarre reason, I didn’t add it to my tribute on Moore last year or review it earlier.  It’s easily one of Moore’s best, not Bond appearances.

Brits of a certain age may recognise it as a firm favourite for Sunday afternoons on British telly in the eighties. In the now halcyon days before the EastEnders omnibus. When the powers that be scheduled a now must watch a movie, instead of the joys and sorrows of Ian Beale et al.

Sadly over here in Finland, we don’t have either, “only” 4 or 5 hours of back-to-back The Simpsons episodes in their omnibus edition on a never-ending loop. Yawn. So at least you Brits only see Enders once… unless you got all those extra channels. Or the love of your life has had a crush on Ian Beale since the show started in 1985, in which case you are in for the long haul. Don’t mock it he or she might be out there… there’s Mrs Adam Woodyatt, for starters.

North Sea Hijack starts introducing us to the hero of the movie, Rufus Excalibur ffolkes (Moore), a rather bizarre character. He appears to live alone in a wee castle in Scotland (although the film was made in Ireland). He has the fashion sense of Here’s Wally (with a natty bobble red and white striped hat), a late 1970s Geography Teacher tweed suit complete with elbow patches and your dad’s yellow Mac (also circa 1970s).

He hates women or his own words “females”, preferring the company of his cats. He also has a liking for good whisky (straight from the bottle, no glass) and enjoys doing cross-stitch  And Bond he most definitely isn’t.

When he’s not looking after his moggies,  he’s a respected Counter-terrorism consultant as head honcho to the ffolkes ffusiliers. These men, he sends as ffolkes’ ffrogmen (so to speak) on a wee underwater training exercise. ffolkes throws a few grenades in the water to add to the authenticity of their task.

Later he is called to London, for his latest assignment. He has been asked by a large insurance chain to formulate a plan for a situation where the security of their North Sea oil installations is threatened.

On the way to London, ffolkes has to share a carriage with a woman (God forbid), – with Angela Thorne in a wee cameo – and she ruffles his feathers by smoking in a non-smoking carriage. Her husband looks sheepishly on. Whereas in contrast Moore as Bond would have come out with a suitable pun and then bedded her, although her husband was there.

Here Moore as ffolkes just annoys her so much that she leaves in a huff, but hey he can now do his embroidery in peace. He drinks his whiskey (straight from the bottle, of course). So after visiting the London Insurance bigwigs, and explaining just exactly just how he would do this job right down to the last detail, he returns home to his cats and castle. Job done.

Meanwhile, skulduggery is afoot in Norway, and we meet Lou Kramer (Perkins) resplendent in a cable jumper that his mother knitted for him (possibly) and a trench coat (and you thought it was Michael Douglas in Wall Street (1987) that started this 1980s fashion).

Included in this group of men, is Harold Shulman (Michael Parks), a memorable character who has what looks like huge bottle bottoms for spectacles (and who for some reason reminded me of Penfold in Danger Mouse (1981-1992) but before he was CGIed). These men and some others boarding a supply ship saying they are The Press. Cue 70s dramatic music.

On being taken to the wheelhouse by the Ship’s Captain,  Kramer reveals himself as not a terrorist – but possibly a terrorist with no insight, as he shoots someone within minutes as you do when you are a terrorist – to the crew. He and some of his motley crew hold the crew hostage down below as Kramer takes command in the wheelhouse.

With his threat to blow up an oil rig, if 25 million pounds in cash isn’t handed over in time. It’s noticeable that all the crew are men apart from one woman. All wearing an array of natty 80s jumpers. The crew are held hostage on the lower deck, and they come up with plans to overcome the bad guys. But with Penfold Shulman in their midst, we are unclear about his motives.

Meanwhile, ffolkes is giving his frogmen ffusiliers another training exercise on some mock installation. He’s summoned to London by Admiral Francis Brindsen (James Mason). The lady Prime Minister – (who so should have been played by Janet Brown, Moore’s co-star in For Your Eyes Only (1981)) is asking for his help in this particular matter relating to British security.

Ffolkes heads down to London with him, with his cross-stitch and whisky…and there he mansplains to all, his plans to recover the oil rig. Meanwhile, Kramer orders his frogmen to place some mines onto the oil rig…

This is a real treat of a movie for the three leads. Moore plays fffolkes with relish and you can tell he enjoyed this complete change to his usual charming, ladies man and suave character as Bond and his other more gentlemanly roles.

Despite this being an almost James Bond type plot, with ffolkes’ eccentricities added to the mix, Moore played this role with a twinkle in his eye and he obviously liked to play someone completely out of character to James Bond.

His lines were deliciously conveyed, and his character’s apparent dislike for women was convincing with a disparaging, arrogant tone to his voice when speaking to the fairer sex. Yet bizarrely he was respectful when talking to the lady Prime Minister. And despite these apparent misogynist tendencies he made ffolkes a likeable character.

Although he looked quite matronly with his embroidery, it simply made him more endearing. Although I’m sure ffolkes may have objected to this particular comment (especially from a woman), it highlighted his loner tendencies had you then pictured him with a log fire, his cats and darning his socks quite happily and a bottle of whisky by his side.

Mason did what he does best, adding his unique Englishness,  gravitas and presence to the movie. Playing the plummy Admiral, his character seemed almost hesitant and more reserved than ffolkes outspoken character. He made him seem almost seemed intimidated by ffolkes. But the pair had a great comic rapport between them.

As the villain of the piece, Perkins looked surprisingly still as sinister as his other roles  – despite his insistence (in his character but also from Perkins himself) that he was not a terrorist  – when in his woolly jumper. Perkins reminded me of Gary Oldman in many of his bad guy roles, almost camping it up as he barked orders at his followers.

It was kind of nice seeing him in this role which although just a wee bit unhinged as many of his characters seem to be, he seemed just as eccentric as ffolkes. This villainous man is motivated by money consciously, unlike other characters he’s played where he was driven by his subconscious.

However, it really is Moore’s excellent tongue-in-cheek portrayal in this movie that makes it the most endearing one of his non-James Bond roles. However, there are also several familiar actors from the James Bond series and many wee references to his Bond character.

There are more than a few actors from Bond movies making appearances namely David Hedison and George Baker. Added to this with his name spelt with FFO in ffolkes being seen in a mirror as OO7, with the crossed German way of writing this number.

Also, I feel it would be interesting to see this film remade with ffolkes character played as Bond. Almost like a Mirror Mirror (1967) episode from Star Trek, if this man is the complete opposite of Bond.

Add Mason as a possible M type character adding to this scenario, and it would be interesting to see if the film would be just as treasured. After all, there’s Moore than a mine of puns out there for the taking…

 

Weeper Rating: 0/10

Handsqueeze Rating: 🙂  🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂10

Hulk Rating: ‎  ‎  /10

 

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Cinema Shame No 3: April

This post was submitted as my April Cinema Shame post. Other films with this cast include,

• Roger Moore in The Cannonball Run HERE, The Wild Geese, his tribute post and more.
• James Mason is written about in my reviews on Heaven Can Wait, Voyage of The Damned, North by Northwest and more.
• Anthony Perkins was written about in Evening Primrose, Murder on the Orient Express and Psycho.
• David Hedison appears in his tribute HERE and in The Colbys.
• Michael Parks in The Colbys.
• Angela Thorne is remembered in her role in North Sea Hijack and To The Manor Born.

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