Violently taking over Foreign embassies, especially those of Countries who actively colonized in one fashion or another, was quite in vogue in my childhood in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s around the World. The most infamous of these sieges to Americans would be the seizing of the United States Foreign Embassy in Teheran in 1979 by the new regime in Iran and the subsequent capture and keeping of United States citizens as public hostages for more than a year by Iranian Intelligence. A lesser known hostage situation to Americans was the Embassy takeover and hostage situation in London, England in the Spring of 1980, between April 30th and May 5th of that year. There after 5 to 6 days of negotiating, a swift and tactically accurate siege and rescue by England’s SAS (The British equivalent to America’s Navy Seals) freed 24 hostages, got two killed (one had been executed prior to the actions by the SAS), killed five terrorists and captured one more. The terrorists in this instance were claiming fealty to Iran as well, and had demanded certain prisoners be freed from Western jails and themselves be given safe passage, neither provision was granted to them by British authorities however. The daring rescue was a PR boon for Britain’s SAS.
By 1982, both the United States and Great Britain were suddenly run by Political Conservatives and the American public was certainly becoming more outwardly Conservative socially. The British and American film industries began to make jingoistic macho action movies like had been custom for decades before the radical nihilism of the 1970’s took hold. The action nadir for the American films of this nature could be the insanely campy “Invasion, U.S.A” with Chuck Norris from 1985 where Russian and Latin special forces invade an American shopping mall (during peak hours, I might add) in the Southern US by crashing a Monster Truck through the windows of the Mall. A British film from this era that gives that premise a stiff challenge and then some is the savagely antagonistic and potentially tongue-in-cheek action thriller, “The Final Option”, released in 1982.
Having viewed the film a couple of times now, I still can’t decipher whether the movie was made by actual filmmaking Conservatives during the fervent wave of early-80’s Western nationalism or whether it was made by snarky regular Left-wing film types trying to cash in on the momentum of temporary Social Conservatism in England and the US. I almost felt while watching this that half the cast is on the edge of bursting into laughter throughout the movie, especially the amazing English actress Judy Davis.
Yes, you read that right, highly acclaimed actress Judy Davis is in this, as is Richard Widmark, Robert Webber, Edward Woodward and Ingrid Pitt, although the headline star of the film is forgotten British action star Lewis Collins. Tech-wise the movie has a tight sterile look to it, the film was directed by British helmsman Ian Sharp and has fittingly given the movie a commendable sharp look, it’s pleasing eye candy although it appears to have been shot during the gloomy months of the year in England. Everything appears glum and gray outside and overcast, the sun or sunshine is hardly seen in this film. Though the film delves into semi-serious issues about modern politics and a charming interlude for a brief romance between Davis and Collins, the headspace of this film seems to be aimed at adults who think like fourteen year-olds, there is very little gray here.
The protagonists and heroes of this film are transparent and evident forthright Conservatives, mostly of Military origins. The Conservatives in this film are mostly portrayed as dry and unimaginative; though they are placed in a much more sympathetic light, they have little to no personality or style, just by-the-book church-going working class gatekeepers of normalcy. The Liberals portrayed in this movie have all the personality quirks, which is part of what made me think this movie was made by the status quo of British Hollywood. The opening sequence after the energetic inceptual titles is of a colorful anti-nuclear arms parade in which we discover the radical militant arm of a fictitious Left-Wing organization called the “People’s Lobby” has just assassinated one of it’s own more benevolent peace-loving members during the opening “no-nukes” protest. Terrorist/Activist Frankie Leith (played by Davis) and others in her sect lead the swarming crowd of seemingly thousands of anti-nuclear protesters with clever slogans like “5,6,7,8…we don’t want to radiate!” As is British tradition, the Left-Wing crowd has scores of catchy anti-Nuclear slogans on signs and billboards. The Activists appear to be harmless archetypes; if they weren’t protesting, they would be home watering their ferns or getting ready to go to a James Taylor concert.
After the opening scene parade and the assassination of the nice-guy activist, the film flashes to a top secret board meeting of Scotland Yard and other Law Enforcement and Military personnel; all upstanding rock-ribbed Brits, led by Military tough guy and unflappable Commander Powell (played by the usually dour Edward Woodward,). This consortium seems to know the Activist Liberals are up to something big and troublesome, they just don’t know what it is yet. The intention of these closed door meeting scenes seems to be to replicate the seriousness of similar scenes from the Fred Zinneman directed thriller “The Day of the Jackal”, but they fall far short. Getting the audience to believer that the scourge of Modern Western Society are Liberal Anti-Nuclear Activists and their ilk is the task at hand before the movie’s screenwriting team of George Markstein and Reginald Rose.
Then we are introduced to our Red Meat-eating, Ass-kicking cynical Conservative no-nonsense hero, Captain Peter Skellen of the SAS, played by Collins. Collins is encouraged by his superiors to get temporarily expunged by the SAS so he can go underground and infiltrate the evil Liberal Activist Organization. His chosen method of infiltration is to woo and bed Frankie Leith, which would have been my first choice as well. The repartee between Collins and Davis is not only surprisingly charming and effective, it’s oddly romantic and unintentionally (or was it intentional? You be the judge) hilarious at times. After Skellen and Leith’s first evening together, Leith informs Skellen that he “makes love like a Man who has just been released from prison”. Skellen has more chemistry with Leith than he appears to have with his wife, Jenny, the dutiful and proper Presbyterian-looking housewife played by Rosalind Lloyd, complete with boring short-haired early 1980’s hairdo. If marrying a Conservative Woman is like being in prison, I guess hooking up with a hot crazy Liberal Woman is like a conjugal visit or weekend furlough.
Watching this film confirmed my suspicions that portraying opposite side political romances are compelling fodder, films should propogate this dynamic more often, at least in the case of Davis and Collins, it’s quite fun. Patently unbelievable, but fun. Davis and Collins almost appear to be holding back belly laughs from some of the dialogue that they are spewing at each other. When Skellen informs Leith that not only is he newly separated from his Wife but he was also just kicked out of the SAS, Leith doesn’t even appear to bristle, I guess the manly fortitude and dynamic Conservative dick of Skellen is blinding to Leith’s typically better judgement.
So while Skellen reports to HQ’s man on the street, who is literally a peddler on the streets of London pretending to hawk British Antique Roadshow nick-nacks underneath a tent that sits on the side of a thoroughfare, Skellen’s amazing undercover work gets him to attend all of the radical faction’s terrorist symposiums ,where Ingrid Pitt (One of the definitive Hammer Horror Studios’ babes of the 1970’s, she was Scarlet Johansson before there was a Scarlet Johansson) is giving infomercial-style tutorials to a room full of bearded and unshaven emo-dudes on how to gun down Righties. She brandishes an accent that is a bizarre mix of KGB, Gestapo, Marthe Keller’s Palestinian terrorist from “Black Sunday” and her own Countess Dracula from 1971.
The showdown scene later in the movie between Pitt as the impatient unhinged home invader terrorist and Lloyd as the hard-ass Suburban young mother and Conservative she-bitch is the cat fight we’d all been waiting for. Jenny and Skellen’s baby son is screaming, Pitt tells Jenny to persuade the baby to shut the fuck up or Pitt is going to blow the baby’s head off with her pistol. Jenny utters something about “let’s go, bitch” or something to that effect and it is on like P.M Dawn. When the SAS, who are monitoring the whole thing through a remote device in the duplex next door, comes blasting and shooting their way in, of course then the baby shuts the fuck up.
In many ways, “The Final Option” is a wet dream for Conservatives who read and believe tabloids. Not saying all do, mind you. Complete with a shadowy George Soros-type character named Malek (portrayed by Aharon Ipale), who pops in from France to finance all of England’s radical Left-Wing Activist groups before hopping on a plane to the United States to do the same. He is of course in cahoots with a Liberal Senator (played by Paul Freeman, the evil Vichy Doctor from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”) as part of a global Liberal conspiracy to sabotage the success of the US and Great Britain. The villains of the movie are not just Left-wing terrorists, but liberalism itself. An early scene, where the Left-wing activists put on a musical and modern dance protest performance piece aimed at heralding their hardcore anti-Nuclear War stance has to be seen to be believed, complete with Leith as an ICBM and Skellen in the audience with his perfectly coiffed hair and GQ turtleneck amidst a crowd of Bohemian, Beer-drinking Post-Grad student Lefties.
The second half of the film is completely action-packed, with the Lefty terrorists taking over a USO tour bus and replacing the identities of the Dance Band musicians while they leave the real band tied up in a barn somewhere near Yorkshire. The band WAS on their way to play an event for Foreign dignitaries, including the US Secretary of State (played by Richard Widmark), a 4-star General (played by Robert Webber) and others of such rarified aristocratic air. The Liberal terrorists take everyone at the event hostage and inform Scotland Yard that in exchange for the lives of the hostages, the terrorists want England to nuke their own Air Base in Scotland that houses freshly installed Nuclear Missiles from the United States. Furthermore, since everyone in the Leftist terror gang doesn’t like Skellen except for Frankie when she’s in bed with him, they decide to insure Skellen’s loyalty by informing him that while the hostage situation was going down, Skellen’s wife and child are also being held hostage. Meanwhile, Skellen sends Catcher-in-a-Baseball-Game type signals to anyone on the law enforcement side who might be potentially scanning the building for anyone trying to deliver hand-signal messages. Skellen and his SAS mates seem to like to kill people, wrestle and ball-bust with other Men and run down hallways with their rifles in formation.
The movie does have a stand-out superlative, a dazzling Funky Disco score by Jazz musician Roy Budd, it glues the messy aspects of the movie together somewhat, making me momentarily forget the inane plot. Whenever Budd’s opening Disco anthem starts churning up again, you know the SAS Congregants are preparing to beat up on some Liberal scumbags. While Budd’s score at times could be confused for a cheesy TV Cop Show, it’s engrossing nonetheless, my heartbeat increased a beat or two whenever Budd’s score fires up. When the shooting starts, the Conservative Soldiers are tight-lipped tough guys whose moves are taut and precise, while the Liberal terrorists are panicky self-conscious worriers who couldn’t hit the ocean with their guns if they were standing on the Beach.
The action scenes are efficient and realistic-looking, multiple sequences of Automatic Weapon fire trading, fallen characters with streaks of authentic-looking bullet holes appearing on their chest or back. It really is quite a humorous sight to see the usually highbrow actress Davis in this, mowing down Marines and gritting her teeth while unloading her machine gun magazine on unsuspecting USO members, she seems to be enjoying herself exploring her notorious side. Richard Widmark gets a few snappy exchanges in as the voice of American Conservatism and super-ego-like reasoning, he goes back and forth with Leith about the effectiveness of political violence, how it in the end changes nothing. Widmark as the US Secretary of State seems to amplify the mantra of all-powerful tough-guy aristocratic conservatives of the early 1980’s; “Bring it on softies, we’ve been ready to die heroically.”
What known films can one compare “The Final Option” to? Probably Right wing American drivel such as “Top Gun”, “The Soldier”, “The Green Berets” or “Red Dawn”. Instead of the actual perpetrators of the embassy attacks of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, such as Iranians or Palestinians, “The Final Option” goes after a more familiar foe, their own countrymen, who happen to be Left-wing or God forbid, Environmental Activists. The movie employs the camraderie of old-time war movies, except now the enemy are those cultivators of softness and subversion, England’s overly sensitive Men and overly assertive Women. Rather then make a film about debate and contentious issues, the creators of “The Final Option” just want to let their Right and Left-wing characters duke it out in a decidedly Right-wing approved arena of finality, the winner-take-all violent shootout.
The film never let’s go of it’s tone of mockery and ridicule of the Left-wing as an ideology. The anecdote that I learned about this film is in conjunction with then-US president Ronald Reagan and his documented movie nights with Nancy and the kids makes total sense. According to sources, the Reagans viewed the film in 1982 upon it’s release in October of 1982 at their movie screening location in Camp David. There is actually a website you can look up all the movies they watched at the location during their tenure a the White House, it’s actually a pretty interesting list of movies, believe it or not. According to sources, “The Final Option” (or possibly it’s alternate title “Who Dares Wins”) was apparently a big fan fave with the Reagans…who would’ve guessed that?
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