SYNOPSICS
The Ransom (1977) is a English movie. Richard Compton has directed this movie. Oliver Reed,Deborah Raffin,James Mitchum,Stuart Whitman are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1977. The Ransom (1977) is considered one of the best Crime,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
In the town of Paradise, Arizona, shady land deals enrich a handful of select few. The town's mayor and sheriff are corrupt and aware of the land schemes. Incensed by this, native-American Victor plans to extort money from the rich as punishment for the land they stole. He starts by killing two local cops with his crossbow. He leaves a note claiming the rich must pay a ransom or die. He demands 1 million dollars to be delivered within 24 hours. The Chief of police, Haliburton, contacts local businessman William Whitaker and they decide to keep the whole thing confidential. They don't want the Press or the Feds involved since it could reveal the local land frauds. Instead, they hire private security investigator Nick McCormick, who advises them to pay out the ransom. The town boasts the largest number of millionaires in the country. Most of them agree with the plan to pay up the ransom and keep things under wraps. They are accused by the local media of being like a 'white-collar mafia'...
More
The Ransom (1977) Reviews
Great cast in cheesy 70s action flick
Medium budget action film thats not as bad as made out. But I'm not saying it's good either. But it does have something. OK the premise is a bit naff. A unnamed wealthy small town in the South-West ( the film was filmed around Scottsdale and Mesa in Arizona) is terrorized by an American Indian with a crossbow who seeking to address the injustices of the past by extorting the town rich of $5 million. Add to that the fact that all of the roles are underwritten and there are many undeveloped plot lines. Without being too picky and in no order: is the Indian really an Indian, why all the Indian mysticism, why is he extorting money, what about his Olympius career, what about the lucrative land deal the big wigs are trying to put together, why does this small community have so many rich people ... Also everyone seems to know each other very well after just meeting. Its as if the actors are anticipating the next scene. Oliver Reed's character abuses, woos, threatens and beds a reporter in about 2 minutes of screen time ! He also forms a friendship based on mutual respect with Jim Mitchum's character in their 4 scenes together. To top this off a lot of the action is a bit lame. So what does the film have? A great cast of familiar faces! I can sit through any tripe if you throw enough faces from years past at me. Stuart Whitman as the millionaire is good ( the best scene in the film is where he and the Indian are playing cat and mouse in his mansion), John Ireland does not have a lot to do but is always dependable, Robert Mitchum's son Jim is vastly underrated ( where is Tarantino to revive his career) and also doesn't have much to do but I suppose he was cast as a familiar face to the 70s action movie crowd ( check him out in "Trackdown"), Paul Koslo again plays the bad guy ( he was the bad guy in so many 70s films and was always excellent) and almost lifts the ridiculous role above what it is worth! Oliver Reed and Deborah Raffin are OK. So if you get a buzz , as I do, watching films from the 70s and 80s with great actors of years past in small leads or supports then this is the ticket for you. For my money the action is fast paced and never boring ( its just not that good). The director, Richard Compton, also directed drive-in cult classic " Macon County Line". By the way the theme song ( for Victor the Indian) , "Shoot Him", was co-written and performed by Roger McGuinn ( of the Byrds) and its lyric explains a lot of the motivations behind the Indian's character .... which the script writers had failed to do.
Great Cast Makes Up for Questionable Script
Assault on Paradise (1977) ** 1/2 (out of 4) A small town full of rich people find themselves being terrorized by an Indian who is shooting and killing people with a crossbow. He offers to stop the killing in exchange for one million dollars. The rich people decide to bring in Nick McCormick (Oliver Reed), an expert in tracking down people like the killer. ASSAULT ON PARADISE was also released under the title MANIAC but no matter what you call it the film itself is fairly entertaining if a bit brain dead. I say that it's a bit brain dead because it's not quite clear what the killings are for and it's not quite clear what all the rich people are hiding. Everything is pretty much being done in secret yet there's really no explanation of what is happened and why. The film's strongest point are the cast members who turn in very fun performances. Reed could play a role like this in his sleep and I'm sure this was just a paycheck to him but he still manages to turn in a good performance. I thought he was quite believable in the part and he made for a good lead. Veterans Stuart Whitman and John Ireland add some nice support as does James Mitchum in his role as a tracker. Deborah Raffin plays a somewhat love interest but her character and the motivations are about as strange as the killers. Paul Koslo plays the killer. The film's biggest problem, other than the screenplay, is the fact that the direction by Richard Compton doesn't really get any suspense from the material. I would have liked a bit more tension but that's just not to be found anywhere. The film also shows some signs of tinkering as the opening sequence was thrown on for no real reason and it sticks out like a sore thumb. With all of that said, if you're a fan of the cast then there's some entertainment to be found here.
Ransom leaves a lot to be desired.
Near Phoenix, Arizona, there's a small town with the highest concentration of millionaires living there. When a psychopath in full Native American regalia (Koslo) sets up shop there and begins killing people with his bow and arrow, the townspeople soon realize he's going to continue sniping people from long distances until he gets the millions of dollars he's requesting. So naturally Oliver Reed, Stuart Whitman and Jim Mitchum are called in to use their manliness to put an end to the madness. Will they succeed? "Give me back my son!!!!!!"...is what you won't be hearing in this tame, mediocre outing. Once again we've fallen prey to what we call "Lone Tiger Syndrome" - that being where we see a movie because of its stellar cast, and then are disappointed because many familiar B-movie names do not necessarily a good movie make. Fan favorite Jim Mitchum is decent as the cowboy Vietnam vet Tracker (great name) but he doesn't get enough screen time to develop his character, a common problem in these "star-studded" affairs. We also love Oliver Reed, but, inexplicably, he resembles Jerry Lewis in the scenes where he wears sunglasses. A lot of his dialogue concerns his drink orders. We'll leave it at that. Stuart Whitman is always a professional, and Deborah Raffin of Death Wish 3 (1985) fame is onboard as the classic (and pretty cliché) female reporter. The standout character, once again, is Paul Koslo as the baddie. He strongly resembles Kurt Russell, and does a great job (not quite as great as his turn in The Annihilators 1985, but once again, he actually had screen time in that one). While there are a handful of okay kill scenes and maybe a few chases (and one exploding helicopter), this movie is filled with, well...filler, and the whole outing is stodgy, kind of like The Hit Team (1971). The movie doesn't fulfill the potential of the cast, and it's just not exciting enough. The killer Indian should have had some goons, but perhaps the budget couldn't allow for them because all the stars had to be paid first. Yet again we come back to the fact that there's no one, singular character we care about. It's all kind of a jumble with the multiple characters. Sure, Koslo tells his enemies they have to "pay the wind", which is a precursor to Red Scorpion 2 (1994), but sadly the proceedings are slow and yawn-inducing. As for the tape itself...no one sings the praises of Vestron more than we do, but they botched this one. It's a horribly obvious pan-and-scan disgrace. They make it seem like the camera is resting on the seat of an exercise rowing machine that someone is tipping up, then tipping back. At least they used one of the more accurate of this movie's many titles. Most of the others make it seem like it's going to be a horror movie of some kind. If you do ever check this movie out, unfortunately we recommend NOT to view the Vestron tape. Featuring the song "Victor's Theme: Shoot Him" by none other than Roger McGuinn and Patrick Ferrell, Ransom leaves a lot to be desired. We've certainly seen a lot worse, but we wish the powerhouse cast would have done something more worthy of their talents.
Silly flick, but I just love Oliver Reed
This is a silly flick, but hell, I just love Oliver Reed. Here he's a badass called Nick, a mercenary whose main fighting skills are his steel glance and incredible poker face. These alone are worth your time. All the rest is bonus: Paul Koslo's unbelievable turn as the Native American assassin named Victor, the okay chase scene half way through (with a cowboy chasing Victor in a convertible, shooting him and yeehawing), Jim Mitchum's deadpan role as a tracker, a hip jazzy soundtrack, a Roger McQuinn song about maniac Victor, a couple of bloody killings by crossbow, one weirdo pre-credit sequence in which the killer shoots a couple of lovebirds Zodiac-style and one particularly effective sequence in which Victor stalks an arrogant millionaire played by Stuart Whitman in his mansion. Not a great flick by any means, but it's got a good pace and it's never boring. And hey, Oliver ff-ing Reed!
Absurd but Amusing "Dirty Harry" knock-off
A sniper clandestinely jaunts around a city, randomly killing people and demanding that he be paid a ransom in order to stop. In response, a take-no-prisoners, rough-around-the-edges law enforcer steps up to take down the threat by any mans necessary. Sound familiar? If you think I'm talking about Dirty Harry, you're right. I'm also talking about "The Ransom," which I myself saw under the title "Maniac!" and have also seen under "Assault on Paradise" and "The Town that Cried Terror!" (the distributors seemed unusually fond of their exclamation points). It was a trend in the 1970s and early 80s for hack directors to churn out low-grade knock-offs of successful, high-budget fare in attempts to cash in on the craze; we still see this phenomenon today with direct-to-video flicks that were tossed together in response to some pop-phenomenon (case in point, the direct-to-DVD "Snakes on a Train" and "Zombies on a Plane" made in apparently two weeks in order to prey on the interest generated by the "Snakes on a Plane" phenom). However, in the 70s/80s, these movies actually made it into the theaters, and more often than not they starred people that the audience actually recognized. The movie is rather tame by 70s standards; there's really not that much blood to speak of, no nudity (that I can recall), and limited profanity. In a year that saw some of the nastiest of the exploitation nasties hit the screen, "Maniac!" is notable for being more silly than sleazy. Even if it had been produced independent of "Dirty Harry," the script, on its own merits, is one massive exercise in corniness. Start off with the fact that the sniper here is a disgruntled former competitive swimmer named Victor who has a bone to pick with the United States because of Vietnam-- I think. His motives are never really addressed in the movie itself, and are left to be explained by the film's closing song, an obscure Byrds number. To show his solidarity with the disenfranchised, Victor dresses up like a Native American and talks in pseudo-mystic metaphors; oh yeah, and instead of using bullets, he kills his victims with a jacked-up crossbow. He's apparently also got an accomplice who dies halfway through the movie in what's supposed to be some kind of mid-film twist, but it's so poorly executed and messy that it's not really clear what's going on. I got the impression that it was supposed to be the narrative equivalent of Harry finding out that he has to let the Scorpio Killer go free halfway through "Dirty Harry." Even as I write this I'm not certain if there was really another guy or not, and if so, who the hell he was and where the hell he came from. In order to bring Victor down, the townsfolk retain the services of Nick McCormick (Oliver Reed), a rough-and-tumble detective who's so macho that he can make a woman willingly go to bed with him by pulling a gun on her, holding it at crotch level and telling her it's loaded (Reed's "ladykiller" scenes come across as parodies of the misogyny rife in 1950s lad culture; I'd call it clever satire if I weren't so sure that it was unintentional). The movie never really explains where Nick came from; we're just supposed to presume that all corrupt land barons read "Soldier of Fortune" magazine and are familiar with its want-ads. Judging by his performance, Reed didn't seem to particularly care where he was going to end up after this. It's often hard to tell whether or not he's sober; there's parts of the movie where it becomes almost impossible to focus on the plot, as Reed's blatant drunkenness takes center stage. Most of his dialogue is delivered in a tooth-clenched growl that is either Reed acting very poorly while sober or very good while intoxicated. He's also inexplicably on the verge of breaking out into a body-drenching sweat in several sequences, even when men of comparable weight and wearing similar clothing have visibly dry skin, another indicator that the sauce was driving his performance just as much as any actor's motivation. Nevertheless, given the material, Reed actually does a pretty decent job. Hammered or not, taken tongue-in-cheek, Reed's fun to watch here. The movie unfolds sloppily, with mediocre action sequences mixed in with bad subplots about corrupt businessmen and promiscuous TV reporters. There are some car chases, a fairly tense cat-and-mouse sequence involving aforementioned corrupt businessman and Victor, and eventually a kind of boring mountaintop climax that employs the ridiculous cliché of the bad guys killing one another off and allowing the hero to walk off into the sunset with clean hands. The action sequences are actually the highlight of the movie, as whatever money could have been spent on a competent writer and sober actors was apparently dumped into the film's rather impressive location shoots and cinematography. Much of the action takes place in the mountains of Phoenix, AR, and the camera crew was at least adept enough to give us some incredible eye candy. It's hard to tell while watching it if it ended the careers of everyone involved, or if they all knew that they had reached the end of the line and intentionally chose this project out of either desperation or as a means of career suicide. The director, Richard Compton, had a minor success a few years prior with "Macon County Line," a western-exploitation film; after this, he spent the remainder of his career directing episodes of TV series. Granted, some of them are top-notch--his "Star Trek: The Next Generation" effort, "Haven," is a highlight of that series' first season. Still, it seems to be a step down to go from writing and directing your own movies to hopping around different TV series. If you're looking for cheap entertainment and happen to find this, either on VHS or bootlegged on DVD, pick it up; it's worth an afternoon.