It's the mid 70s and a post Bond Connery has to explore the options available in order to expand his "range". Hollywood has gone "youth" with genre breaking thrillers from new talent ushering in a new realism and political awareness.
These things are evident in "Ransom" which is not particularly violent but seems to want to play a dystopian understanding of global hypocrisy while keeping a fairy tale ending, kind of like another airport bound thriller, Die Hard 2 would do with a higher body count and more sophistication.
Bad guys are loosely sketched, the wife of a diplomat hostage goes nerve shreddingly irrational, the plot is moved from signpost to signpost as our hostage negotiator solved the case almost completely out of nowhere. There's crosses and double crosses but nothing that surprises and no sequences that hold the tension.
Sadly, it's got the talent, it's got the movement and the intent but it's only got an idea for a script rather than a fully realised screenplay. A real missed opportunity.
These things are evident in "Ransom" which is not particularly violent but seems to want to play a dystopian understanding of global hypocrisy while keeping a fairy tale ending, kind of like another airport bound thriller, Die Hard 2 would do with a higher body count and more sophistication.
Bad guys are loosely sketched, the wife of a diplomat hostage goes nerve shreddingly irrational, the plot is moved from signpost to signpost as our hostage negotiator solved the case almost completely out of nowhere. There's crosses and double crosses but nothing that surprises and no sequences that hold the tension.
Sadly, it's got the talent, it's got the movement and the intent but it's only got an idea for a script rather than a fully realised screenplay. A real missed opportunity.