Post by Eddie Love on Oct 3, 2010 19:22:47 GMT -5
At the advent of the Thatcher era in Great Britain came the jingoistic action thriller THE FINAL OPTION (A.K.A WHO DARES WIN). Produced by Euon Lloyd, it tells the story of stalwart British troops facing off against deluded, left-leaning peacenik terrorists. Seen today, it’s an entertaining 80s curio.
As the film opens, internal security forces in London suspect the British, anti-nuclear movement is becoming a haven for Marxist terrorists bent on planning something big. The authorities arrange to have a member of the S.A.S. (I assume this is some kind of super-cool British special forces) kicked out of the services for brutalizing some of his men. He shows up at a pub where the terrorists present their ghastly, anti-American performance art and promptly hits on and beds the star of the show, the red-haired leader of the group played by Judy Davis. The two embark on a sexual dalliance, while he tries to insinuate himself into her plans, without raising the suspicions of her already wary comrades. When their ultimate plan is revealed, it’s a daring hostage-taking with amazingly stupid demands.
The S.A.S officer is played by brooding, James Bond also-ran Lewis Collins. It’s hard to tell if he’s wooden, or refreshingly natural. I’m inclined to believe the later. He’s saddled with an unfortunate 80s hairstyle that looks a bit like Eddie Munster, and at times he suggests a more buff Tim Curry. But I can see why he would have been in the running for 007, as he has a dark, laconic – if low-key -- charisma.
This film was made shortly after Judy Davis’ astonishing debut in MY BRILLIANT CARREER (a film she’s reputed to loathe.) Here, even if her hair is teased up to look like a New Wave songstress, she’s still an incredibly compelling presence. You can’t take you eyes off her. She brings a strident, petulance to her political justifications, but she also suggests an intelligent woman so besotted by her attraction to the mole, that she jeopardizes everything she’s worked for. (Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but I never caught what her nationality was supposed to be.)
The film goes out of it way to suggest peace activists who take to the streets to protest the arms race are decent, compassionate sorts, their ranks unknowingly infiltrated by terrorists. However, in a long scene between the U.S. Secretary of State (Richard Widmark) and Davis, the subject under debate isn’t terrorism, but nuclear proliferation, and clearly the lefties are supposed to sound foolish. Later, the film ends with a “shocking” reveal about who’s really behind these terrorists, and it’s clearly a mainstream internal enemy. There’s also a “Rock Against Nukes” concert the heroes attend, where the crowd is shown as incapable of clapping along to the music in the proper rhythm. However, the scenes in the left-wing enclaves look pretty authentic.
At the heart of this film is the relationship between the two leads, and if this were explored more deeply, the film would be far more memorable. The notion of the female terrorist who thwarts her own plans due to her sexual longings for an agent who’s infiltrated her group, is pretty novel – a dramatically interesting, distaff inversion of Claude Rains in NOTORIUS. On the flip-side is the happily married undercover operative who has to get it up every night to bang a terrorist. And the two leads are clearly up for it, and have a crackling chemistry. Unfortunately, that area is pretty undernourished here -- they leave a lot on the table.
The film instead focuses on the action side of things and the S.A.S procedural angle. This leads to one of the two glaring flaws in the picture. The filmmakers clearly have insider access to the military groups they’re depicting, and their fealty to the units undermines any suspense, as it’s obvious that these men aren’t going to be shown as anything other than spectacularly effective. And, indeed – once their raids go live, they’re pretty by-the-book exercises. No one’s on the edge of their seat, however long the set-ups have been teased out. (The other mistake is that the terrorists suspect our hero is a mole, but take him along on their mission anyway. Um…..okay.)
There’s a pretty nondescript supporting cast, excepting the aforementioned Widmark. But if you want to see an actor who refuses to be constrained by a perfunctory role, catch the great Edward Woodward as the Metropolitan police officer leading the investigation into the Marxist group. There are no particular lines that you could say add any color to his drab character, but it makes no matter – Woodward injects a vivid attitude into everything he does.
TFO is a pretty good thriller, albeit one that frustrates with the underused talents of the cast and confounds with its archaic political underpinnings. Nevertheless, it’s a watchable action yarn.
