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If you take a look at our lists, you will see that there are very few places where my esteemed colleague and I agree (exhibit a: Ikiru in his film badness (unforgivable really); exhibit b: Hanniballs in mine). This, however, is definitely one of them.

He's been recommending it to me for ages and, despite our obvious divergences, I'm always quick to check out what he recommends. I was also interested by the appearance of Jack Lemmon in so many of his lists. Now I can see why.
The film itself misses out on my top 25, but not by much. Lemmon and Jane Fonda, however, both make it for their respective performances. Even Michael Douglas - who I hate* - is good.

Fonda excels as the talented but misused reporter looking for a story to help her secure the role she really wants, but the film belongs, in my view (I think my esteemed colleague will disagree**) to the magnificent Lemmon, whose hard-working, conscience-torn, loner, Jack Godell is the kind of hero us everyday folk, I guess, all want to be (in this way, he's not unlike Roy Scheider's Brody), in some way at least.

The film itself has a number of interesting plot-developments that stay with you long after the curtain falls, which make it much more than an edge-of-your-seat disaster movie (which it certainly is). It really wins out, however, over the ever-looming tension, that grows to unbearable proportions at times. I defy anyone not to grip the nearest pillow when a prostrate Godell whispers to Kimberly Wells (Fonda), "I can feel it". No less tense is the exchange between Godell and Wells which precedes it, as Godell, won over to the side of truth, struggles so powerfully and memorably to get out his words. And, most importantly of all, you believe him. It's a classic, so make sure, if you haven't already, that you catch up otherwise, like me, you'll have been too long in the dark. It's an A+, 10/10, film, and there are very few of them. There can be no higher praise than that.

*what kind of crazy mentalist could possibly hate someone who delivered the single greatest line in cinema history? "The dog is dead James. I think I know a dead dog when I see one." What's the world coming to?

**only slightly. I can't fault Lemmon at all and it's quite possible my favourite male performance of all time but, if it's anyone's film, it's Fonda's. AL