This is a very odd film. The plot is extremely convoluted: a gang abducts the son of one man (Michael Caine) with no money, in order to obtain diamonds from the government (via Donald Pleasance). Pleasance then refuses the diamonds to Caine (thus proving the gang should have chosen someone with money) who then steals them and travels to France with a James-Bond-esque suitcase. Meanwhile the gang is meticulously trying to implicate Caine in the abduction (for some unclear reason) which involves killing their own female gang member and framing Caine. But when he is captured by the police they help him escape...
If this were not convoluted enough, the writers obviously try to lighten the tone of its harrowing subject matter (child abduction and torture) with some comedy moments which seem very misplaced.
The whole "implicate Caine" subplot is particularly strange and seems more to inject a bit of lurid sensationalism (nude snaps and dead girl in bed) and to provide an excuse for a poorly executed escape sequence. I'm not even sure why the capture/escape is staged in France apart from the fact that French cops have guns and therefore Caine can be shot at. This brief French excursion unnecessarily causes another poorly staged sequence; his need to get back into England.
One also wonders why the girl would allow herself to be photographed etc. Planting evidence incriminating your own guilt is hardly a good idea, and she must surely have smelt a rat?
All this shot in the unimaginative fashion of a typically gritty 1970s British film (with typical music too) which makes us think more of a long episode of THE SWEENEY than anything cinematic (compare the feeble pursuit on the underground here with that in the FRENCH CONNECTION which was obviously the inspiration for it).
If this were not convoluted enough, the writers obviously try to lighten the tone of its harrowing subject matter (child abduction and torture) with some comedy moments which seem very misplaced.
The whole "implicate Caine" subplot is particularly strange and seems more to inject a bit of lurid sensationalism (nude snaps and dead girl in bed) and to provide an excuse for a poorly executed escape sequence. I'm not even sure why the capture/escape is staged in France apart from the fact that French cops have guns and therefore Caine can be shot at. This brief French excursion unnecessarily causes another poorly staged sequence; his need to get back into England.
One also wonders why the girl would allow herself to be photographed etc. Planting evidence incriminating your own guilt is hardly a good idea, and she must surely have smelt a rat?
All this shot in the unimaginative fashion of a typically gritty 1970s British film (with typical music too) which makes us think more of a long episode of THE SWEENEY than anything cinematic (compare the feeble pursuit on the underground here with that in the FRENCH CONNECTION which was obviously the inspiration for it).