Review of Brannigan

Introduction

John Wayne enters Dirty Harry territory in this 1975 thick-ear thriller. Filmed almost exclusively in London and featuring star supporting turns from Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson, Brian Glover and even a young-and-shiny cameo from Tony Robinson, "Brannigan" is a shameless ripoff of Clint Eastwood`s signature role (which the Duke had turned down much to his later regret).

The Duke plays Chicago cop Lt. Jim Brannigan, out to get underworld kingpin Larkin (John Vernon). Following the villain to London with extradition papers, Brannigan gets involved with the colourful characters of the UK underworld when Larkin is kidnapped.

A stand-out moment in the movie is a good old-fashioned pub brawl involving the Duke, Sir Dickie and just about every stuntman in the British film industry.

The set-piece finale of the picture takes place at the disused North Thames Gas Treatment works, a location beloved of tv directors of the 1970s and which featured extensively in shows like "The New Avengers", "The Professionals", and in movies like "For Your Eyes Only" where the main chimney on the site was used as a convenient place to drop off the bald chap in the wheelchair during the pre-title sequence.

Good, stupid fun.

Video

Presented in the original anamorphic 2.35:1 Panavision, colours are bright and well-saturated, although the opening US-based scenes are noticeably brighter than the rest of the film once Blighty has been reached.

Audio

Unsurprisingly the sound is only mono (DD2.0). The film has a bright, Starsky-and-Hutch style soundtrack by Dominic Frontiere that is sheer loungecore.

Features

Bare-bones only. That means just a theatrical trailer (anamorphic 2.35:1 like the main feature) and multilingual subtitles.

Conclusion

I have fond memories of this picture, although I seem to remember more oddball characters than turned up in this showing. As the movie is uncut I`ll have to put it down to the onset of bewilderment.