Review: Brannigan


Slippery lawyer Mel Ferrer manages to get underworld figure John Vernon on a flight to Britain to hide out. Dogged Chicago cop of the film’s title (John Wayne) follows, but when Vernon is nabbed, British law being what it is, has him released on bond! Oh, but Scotland Yard are keeping tabs on him, so that’s all jolly good then. But then Scotland Yard head Sir Richard Attenborough must tell Brannigan that Vernon has been kidnapped! Oh, and a hitman has been hired (Daniel Pilon) to take Brannigan out for good. Judy Geeson is Brannigan’s spunky partner/escort in London, James Booth is a shady underworld guy, Brian Glover is a dumb thug, Ralph Meeker is Brannigan’s angry Chicago boss, John Stride is Attenborough’s aide, and Tony Robinson plays a patsy on a motorbike.


Uneven 1975 Douglas Hickox (the loopy black comedy “Entertaining Mr. Sloane”) cop movie transplants The Duke to the UK, but the results are never as good as you’d like. Unfortunately the most interesting characters are the villains, but even then Ferrer and especially the intimidating Vernon are short-changed in favour of the much less effective Booth and Pilon. The film really looked like it was going somewhere before Vernon gets kidnapped and taken out of most of the picture. The film never really recovers, as neither Booth nor Pilon are very good in their roles. Wayne and Geeson are fine (though Geeson does give off a lot of Julie Christie vibes if you ask me), Attenborough doesn’t get much to do except act pompous and perplexed alternately, but there’s a couple of terrific cameos by brawny Glover and the future Baldric, Tony Robinson.


It has its moments but it’s mostly pretty uninvolving, though fans of Wayne’s other latter day cop flick “McQ” might rate it a bit higher. Pub brawl isn’t as amusing as everyone else seems to think it is. The screenplay by Christopher Trumbo, Michael Butler (“The Gauntlet”, “Code of Silence”, “Pale Rider”), William P. McGivern (“The Big Heat”, William Castle’s “I Saw What You Did”, and author of the underrated “Odds Against Tomorrow”), and William W. Norton (“Big Bad Mama”, “The Scalphunters”, “Gator”, “White Lightning”) is too complex for its own good and indicative of too many cooks in the kitchen.


Rating: C+

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