Punning titles can be a bit of a double edged sword so whilst, ‘Shaun of the Dead’ or ‘The Santa Clause’ worked well our own script that saw a cocktail addled lawyer in the American deep South defending a black man against a false charge proved problematic and consequently our film, ‘Tequila Mockingbird’ stalled. In the case of Knightfall it’s the name of security op and biological battle expert Ros Knightfall (Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott) who recovers a bioweapon that can melt you from the inside out and seemingly also sold in any Old Kent Road takeaway if last Saturday night was anything to go by. The boss of her unit is Hugh (Geoffrey Moore, son of Roger) and they have had a romantic past. But when that goes awry she calls on her estranged Dad (Ian Ogilivy) who just so happens to be a well regarded spycatcher.
Behind the Knightfall
Knightfall is the latest from producer Jonathan Sothcott and whilst his budgets might struggle to cover a meal deal what is does do so well is casting old school actors and occasionally out of favour stars. It’s not the first time he’s cast Ogilvy in his films (he’s great in the producers, ‘They Still Kill the Old Way’) and he’s joined fleetingly by Michael Pare showing that he’s still got his action chops and also Nick Moran for one scene and in fairness we really wish Guy Ritchie would get him back on board with his gangster geezer films.
On the action front there’s a decent house siege defended by Ogilvy that’s akin to a drastically pared down version of the house siege in series 1 of Gangs of London. That this is all shot at night serves to also hide the film’s low budget that is so often the downfall of actioners.
Falls up or down?
That there’s three screenwriters for this is something of a surprise and we’re guessing two of them were put on punning title detail whilst the other wrote the screenplay – with such gems as, ‘I’m 70 years old!’. But the thin story is there to facilitate the action and seeing Ian Ogilvy become a one man killing machine is its highlight.
It’s all slickly done and breezes along at a brief 90 minutes but what we’d really like to see is an old school cast in a big budget actioner. Less Die Hard with a Vengeance more Die Hard with a Zimmer’
related feature : Ian Ogilvy talks ‘Renegades’, OAP stunt work, old school stars and James Bond
related feature : Nick Moran actor-director on Lock Stock, Harry Potter, Guy Ritchie plus his favourite films
Here’s the trailer……
