edwagreen I was wondering when all the action was going to start. After all, this film concentrates on a hijacking thriller and with the exception of one passenger who resisted, no violence whatsoever goes on during the 90 minutes of this film.Sean Connery plays a hard-nosed by the book chief assigned to end this situation where a British Ambassador, dying from heart disease, is held captive by terrorists and as they make their escape, they're warned of impending doom. Along comes some cohorts to hijack an airplane and threaten to blow it up with the 100 passengers and crew on board.Ian MacShane plays the devilish heavy here, but is really a heavy? Routine fanfare.

JoeytheBrit Sean Connery plays a tough, uncompromising security chief who just happens to be a Swede with a distinctive Scottish burr in this forgotten thriller from the mid-70s. It's probably forgotten because it's all a bit hum-drum and consistently fails to thrill at any level. These were sort of Connery's wilderness years when he made a number of stinkers post-Bond (this, Zardoz, The Next Man) before finally hitting his stride. Having said that, he's still the best thing in this. Ian McShane can't compare and, sporting a three piece-suit and footballer's hair-do, makes a completely unconvincing terrorist.The story is unnecessarily convoluted and – at less than 90 minutes – overlong, with a number of superfluous scenes. Characterisation is non-existent, the terrorist's ideology and objectives sketchily described, and the climax is badly bungled as black-and-white suddenly becomes a murky grey which grows even muddier when two (presumably) good guys come to blows.The picture's one saving grace is Sven Nykvist's terrific photography. He captures some incredible images during the plane chase sequence which are simply staggering when viewed in high definition.

hondo8 I thought the story flowed nicely and as I watched it I had the feeling it may be one of those good sleepers I had missed in the past. Really most of the actors were weak...but Connery and especially McShane were good. I have to say the ending made no sense at all...and when that happens you wonder why you watched the movie. Did I miss something or were both Connery and McShane(Deadwood) after the same guy. If so why did they fight in the plane....I may have missed something but weren't they basically on the same side? Were the hijackers on the plane all working for the Britsh? Just an absolutely bad ending to a movie that actually had some potential.

Mikew3001 "Ransom" is a Swedish 1974 action thriller about a bunch of terrorist taking the British ambassador in Sweden and an airplane full of passengers on an airport as hostages for blackmailing the government to free some radical political prisoners - a typical plot of seventies' politics and thriller books and movies. It's Sean Connery's turn now, playing the Swedish secret service boss Tahlvik, to free the hostages, and he finds out a shocking political conspiracy between the governments and the terrorists...Well, only Sean Connery is worth being watched in this movie, playing a moustache-wearing agent in his European post-007 years with the well-known James Bond touch, but with a sharper and more tragical edge. The other actors are rather mean (watch out for Germany's legendary "Kommissar Keller" Erik Ode in a cameo), but Finnish director Caspar Wrede and his production team didn't do a really good job!Although the story is good, Wrede didn't know how to produce action, thrills, subplots and interesting characters. Except for some explosions in the beginning of the films and a short showdown at the end, the pacing is boring, the characters are dull and the editing seems like from a first-step student short cut. With an experienced director, photographer and editor, this movie could have been a lost little treasure maybe. So you can only wonder why Connery and Jerry Goldsmith, who provided a rather weaker score here, got involved with this picture. "Ransom" is far away from the great new wave of Swedish action, thriller and political crime books and films of the last 15 years - and it can't compete at all with Joseph Sargeant's brilliant subway hijacking drama "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3" which was released a short time before.