When long-time locked-up convict Oliver Reed breaks out of prison to kill wife Jill St. John for getting pregnant without him, it seems a solo effort despite having a buddy right alongside since Ian McShane's his dead-ringer/doppelganger, and both seem like the same character, only one's younger, more shady and sexually-active while our volatile anti-hero's as determined and narrow-minded as Michael Caine from this film's obvious muse GET CARTER, only with far less last names/red herrings and a much simpler plot i.e. Almost none at all...
Which doesn't matter since the action, starting with a jailbreak (after making ample use of the same claustrophobic 'giant clock Victorian-style' prison from THE ITALIAN JOB) reminiscent of a nail-biting World War II POW flick, occurs at all the right moments, including Reed fending off motorcycles through clotheslines sent by constable Edward Woodward, who surprisingly has little overall purpose...
Except for protecting the most important dame, on paper, but Jill St. John's upstaged by sultry yet vulnerable Jill Townsend (middleman Frank Finlay's kept girl), who'd have made a perfect heart-of-gold moll for Reed...
But his primary SITTING TARGET has made him a deadly and vengeful one-woman-man, while it lasts...
Providing director Douglas Hickox (before directing John Wayne in the comparably mainstream British-set BRANNIGAN) enough exploitation zoom shots and surreal camera angles that, backed by an offbeat Stanley Myers score, feels deliberately catered to the previous decade's Swinging 60's psychedelia, when, in actuality, the visual bedlam coincides with and is perfectly suited for an unhinged Reed, here at his most severe and uncompromising.
Which doesn't matter since the action, starting with a jailbreak (after making ample use of the same claustrophobic 'giant clock Victorian-style' prison from THE ITALIAN JOB) reminiscent of a nail-biting World War II POW flick, occurs at all the right moments, including Reed fending off motorcycles through clotheslines sent by constable Edward Woodward, who surprisingly has little overall purpose...
Except for protecting the most important dame, on paper, but Jill St. John's upstaged by sultry yet vulnerable Jill Townsend (middleman Frank Finlay's kept girl), who'd have made a perfect heart-of-gold moll for Reed...
But his primary SITTING TARGET has made him a deadly and vengeful one-woman-man, while it lasts...
Providing director Douglas Hickox (before directing John Wayne in the comparably mainstream British-set BRANNIGAN) enough exploitation zoom shots and surreal camera angles that, backed by an offbeat Stanley Myers score, feels deliberately catered to the previous decade's Swinging 60's psychedelia, when, in actuality, the visual bedlam coincides with and is perfectly suited for an unhinged Reed, here at his most severe and uncompromising.