Sitting Target (1972) No Cage Can Hold Oliver Reed & His Lust For Revenge!

Banged up brute Harry Lomart (Oliver Reed) is in for a long stretch this time, possibly 15 years. Well he has murdered someone but at least his wife will wait for him till he gets out. He keeps fit by working out hard in his prison cell, like a caged gorilla doing pull ups from the pipework on the ceiling. Keep active, keep strong and the years will flyby, then he can be back in the arms of his lady. Yeah he can deal with the shakedowns and crappy food, he’s as strong as an ox.

All’s good until Pat Lomart (Jill St. John) turns up on visiting day and delivers her “Dear John” in person. Surely Harry doesn’t expect her to wait around for that long, it’s not her fault they’ve thrown the book at him. Besides she’d be too old to start a family and it’s all been set in motion, he’s gonna have to deal with it because she is pregnant with another man’s child. Light the blue touch paper and stand well back………..

Harry goes ballistic, bringing to the surface all that caged wild rage. All hell breaks loose as Harry is thrown into solitary confinement, time to work out some more, time to dwell on revenge. He has to escape, he’s a man possessed by obsessed hatred, where murder will be his only redemption from the loathing and resentment inside. He has to kill his wife Pat!

Tagline – YOU ARE LOOKING AT AN ANIMAL! A woman is his target…No cage can hold his lust for revenge.

Lucky for psycho Harry, his partner in crime and cell neighbour, Birdy Williams (Ian McShane) has been busy working out an escape plan with the help of high up, inside man MacNeil (Freddie Jones) who has the means and the bribes to bust outta this fortress. He’s happy to have these two along to help the escape, to assist with the guards, high wire barbed fences and the dogs, there has to be a dog right?

The ferocious, rage filled escape is raw and realistic, bringing a real sense of tension and fear. Jumping over monstrous brick walls and countless barbwire fences as they make their daring jailbreak. The darkness of night only helps to amp up the fast paced action. These maybe bad guys but you are kind of rooting for them to get to freedom even if it means certain consequences will be coming.

With Harry out and in full Hulk mode, can Birdy persuade him to lay low until the heat is off? Now Pat knows Harry is out and gunning for her she has protection from the police and Inspector Milton (Edward Woodward). He’s in charge, conducting the security and hoping he and his men can apprehend Harry as soon as possible. He’s not stupid, he knows it’s not going to be easy! Only hate filled carnage can be on this whirlwind path of Harry’s lust for revenge!

A few observations

• With all Harry Lomart’s fury and temper of a wild animal, somewhere under all that is a strange tenderness and passion. Look out for the bath scene.
• The soundtrack is by film composer Stanley Myers. It’s a mellow funky score featuring superb touches of a dark electronic noise that breaks through. It was never released at the time but saw the light of day on vinyl and CD through the record label Finders Keepers Records in 2006.
• The film is filled with barrels of classic British depression that filled our screens through the 70’s and 80’s. Not as good as the following but fits into genre with the likes of Get Carter, Scum, Villain, McVicar, etc.

• Directed by Douglas Hickox who gave us the fun John Wayne comes to the UK action film Brannigan, the star studied Zulu Dawn and the Vincent Price and Diana Rigg film Theater Of Blood (which I haven’t seen and really need too!)

If you have a fondness for gritty, raw, UK gangster, crime movies and you haven’t seen this one it’s worth checking out, not sure how I missed it before but glad I’ve ticked it off the list.

Anything to add Harry? – “it’s like a pimps brothel in here!”

To play us out, do your thing Stanley Myers.