FILM REVIEW OF ''KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE" (2015)

Imagine putting the James Bond movies into a cinematic blender with the Austin Powers comedies, and you’ll see what British director Matthew Vaughn does with his outlandish movie “Kingsman: The Secret Service.”  For the record, Vaughn made his first film as a director in 2004 with the murderous mobster melodrama “Layer Cake” (2004) starring Daniel Craig.  Three years later he followed up “Layer Cake” with “Stardust.”  This imaginative Neil Gaiman fantasy romance bore little resemblance to the gritty “Layer Cake.”  Vaughn didn’t come into his own until he adapted Mark Millar’s subversive graphic novel “Hit Girl” as the Nicolas Cage actioneer “Kick Ass.”  This controversial revenge thriller about a dad and daughter who dressed like comic book super-heroes to destroy a dastardly gangster spawned a sequel.  Vaughn’s biggest success came with the incomparable Marvel Comics “X-Men” prequel “X-Men: First Class” about the costume-clad mutants in their youth during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.  Vaughn has recycled many of the themes and characters from those movies for his adaptation of Mark Millar’s graphic novel “Kingsman: The Secret Service”(***1/2 OUT OF ****) that features Colin Firth, Michael Caine, and Mark Strong.  This uneven but entertaining homage to the James Bond movies provides an overdue departure from the usual formulaic, testosterone laden fare that sacrifices wit and style for realism and gore.  Mind you, Vaughn grinds his action gears during the early scenes as he sets up his improbable plot.  Happily, he has everything running smoothly for an explosive finale.  The big problem that Vaughn had to contend with in launching a new franchise was pairing relatively unknown actor Taron Egerton with veteran actor Colin Firth who rarely plays armed and deadly heroes.  Meanwhile, sympathetic heroes and treacherous villains tangle mercilessly in this larger-than-life, hyperbolic espionage escapade that could easily qualify as “50 Shades of Blood” for its sensational number of mind-blowing action scenes.  Hundreds of thousands of people perish when an evil megalomaniac plans to solve overpopulation by implanting SIM cards into their heads, controlling their thoughts, and converting their cell phones into improvised explosive devices.  “Kingsman: The Secret Service” qualifies as the kind of silly but stout, R-rated saga that might repel squeamish moviegoers. 

Matthew Vaughn and his wife Jane Golden, who has collaborated on every film her husband has helmed except “Layer Cake,” have adapted Mark Millar’s graphic novel with the same audacious abandon that they infused in “Kick Ass.”  Indeed, they have made some extreme but inspired changes to Millar’s narrative.   For example, without giving anything away, the villain in the graphic novel was Caucasian; the villain’s second-in-command was male, and Mark Hamill played himself rather than a scientist. “Kingsman” concerns an independent, international espionage agency hidden behind the façade of an elite tailor's shop on London's Savile Row that operates at the highest level of discretion like “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” television series.  This private outfit makes Navy SEALs look like second-rate shrimp.  Indeed, if such an ultra-secret organization existed, world peace would be guaranteed.  Latter day British knights of the realm with appropriate code-names like Lancelot and Galahad, these dudes cut dashing figures in their globe-trotting missions to preserve peace and solidarity.  The cream of their crop, Harry Hart (Colin Firth), ranks as their top agent.  He is at his best when he has little more than an umbrella to vanquish the villains.  British actor Colin Firth, who plays the impeccably clad protagonist, has been acting since 1984, but he is known largely as a lightweight leading man in romantic comedies like “Mamma Mia!,” “Shakespeare in Love,” and “Bridget Jones’ Diary.”  In 2007, he ventured out of his comfort zone and played an armor-clad knight in the above-average medieval swashbuckler “The Last Legion.”  During one of Vaughn’s many impressively staged action set-pieces, Firth devastates a hatemongering Westboro-style church congregation in a no-holds-barred, free-for-all fracas. 

As “Kingsman” unfolds, Harry Hart’s closest comrade, Lancelot (Jack Davenport), dies during a mission but saves Harry’s life.  Predictably, Harry consoles Lancelot’s grieving widow and son.  Understandably distraught by her husband’s mysterious demise, Michelle Unwin (Samantha Womack of “Breeders”) wants nothing to do with Kingsman.  Nevertheless, Harry persuades her only son, Eggsy, to accept Lancelot’s medal inscribed with a phone number and a code word should he ever require help.  Seventeen years later, as an underprivileged teen living in the projects, Eggsy finds himself in deep trouble.  Our wild, impulsive hero steals an automobile belonging to a gang of loutish British lads who have been badgering him.  Commandeering their vehicle for a joyride, Eggsy careens through congested London traffic, driving the vehicle in reverse, with the police following him nose to nose, as he executes several complicated maneuvers.  Vaughn excels with suspenseful scenes like this careening car chase.  Later, with nobody to help him, Gary ‘Eggys’ Unwin (newcomer Taron Egerton) contacts Harry.  After Harry gets Eggsy out of the clink, he takes him for a tour of a local tailor’s shop that serves as a front for Kingsman.  Since he feels guilty about the death of Eggys’ dad, Harry helps the lad compete with other candidates for the job-of-a-lifetime as a Kingsman.  After surviving the gauntlet of an incredible obstacle course, Eggys stands poised to become a top agent who can match wits and swap fists with either James Bond or Jason Bourne.  Unfortunately, our hero commits some interesting mistakes before he can redeem himself in the eyes of the Kingsman and save the world. 

Samuel L. Jackson steals the show as goofy looking, Internet billionaire philanthropist Richmond Valentine.  Adopting with a quirky lisp, Jackson wears his baseball cap askew like a gangsta.  Clearly, Valentine represents Jackson’s best performance since “Pulp Fiction.”  Although the tongue-in-cheek Jackson overshadows handsome Harry Hart and his unusual arsenal of weapons, Valentine’s number one henchman--perhaps ‘henchm’am would be better--is a gravity-defying dame equipped with razor-sharp, 'Flex-Foot Cheetah' blade feet, who slices up her adversaries like deli meat.  Nothing can prepare you for Algerian dancer Sofia Boutella of “StreetDance 2” when she performs her breathtaking acrobatic feats in a variation on Oddjob and his razor sharp bowler hat from the Bond groundbreaker “Goldfinger.”  Altogether, “Kingsman: The Secret Service” amounts to amusing but polished nonsense.

FILM REVIEW OF ''GREEN ZONE" (2010)

“Bourne Ultimatum” director Paul Greengrass thrusts audiences into the thick of the gunfire in his action-packed Matt Damon thriller “Green Zone” (*** out of ****), co-starring Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson and Jason Isaacs, about the Allied invasion of Iraq in 2003. Unfortunately, Greengrass’ high-octane, adrenaline-fueled combat actioneer clashes with Oscar-winning "L.A. Confidential" scenarist Brian Helgeland’s conspiracy theory narrative. This above-average, 115 minute, military melodrama about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will grip you with its verisimilitude. Greengrass choreographs the violence with such nerve-wracking ferocity that you feel as if you are scrambling with American soldiers as they blast their way into and out of tight spots with enemy gunners literally springing up out of nowhere to rattle off small arms. Anybody who has seen not only “The Bourne Supremacy” but also “The Bourne Ultimatum” knows Greengrass is the latest accomplished master of an old filmmaking technique known as cinema vérité. Cinema vérité occurs when filmmakers rely on hand-held cameras to capture actors and action as if it were really happening. Today we classify this form of filmmaking as ‘shaky cam.’ Greengrass helmed both “Bourne” thrillers and used cinema vérité to supercharge them. Despite its vigorous action set-pieces, “Green Zone” suffers marginally because Helgeland tampers with history and cooks up an expose that implicates a Washington, D.C., orchestrated conspiracy to go war against Iraq without sufficient cause.

Our protagonist, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon of “The Informant”), has been dispatched to Iraq to ferret out weapons of mass destruction following the 2003 invasion. People without a clue about Miller’s military rank should know that while he outranks top-senior enlisted soldiers, he is lower than commissioned officers. No matter where Miller and his team go, they always come up empty-handed. They shoot their way into three life-and-death predicaments, and each time they discover nothing. Miller’s frustration mounts and his questions make his superiors feel uneasy. He quizzes them about the so-called ‘reliable’ source that furnished them with the information. Later, disheveled CIA Baghdad Bureau Chief Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix") informs Miller that he will find no weapons of mass destruction at next scheduled WMD site on his list.

Meantime, a strictly peripheral character, Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), wants her confidential Washington, D.C., source to identify himself. As it turns out, Dayne’s source--code-named ‘Magellan--is none other than slippery Bush Administration official, Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear of “Stuck on You”), who knows far more than he is prepared to share. The villainous Poundstone keeps stringing along Dayne. Things change entirely for Miller when a friendly Iraqi (Khalid Abdalla of “The Kite Runner”), who Miller nicknames ‘Freddy,’ confronts him at a crowded intersection with a valuable tip. Freddy points them like a bird dog to a clandestine meeting of Saddam’s top lieutenants where he saw Iraqi General Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor of “Rendition”), who has been in hiding in Baghdad. Miller and his men storm the building, swap lead with the fleeing Iraqis, and our hero spots General Al-Rawi.

No sooner has Miller nabbed one of Al-Rawi’s subordinates, Seyyed Hamza (Said Faraj of “The Siege”), than Special Forces descends out of the blue in helicopters. Briggs (Jason Isaacs of “Daredevil” with a bandit mustache) takes Hamza into custody. He demands Miller cough up an address book that Miller confiscated with all the locations of Al-Rawi’s safe houses. Later, Miller slips the address book to Brown. Brown enlightens Miller about the amoral complications in the Iraq predicament. Stunned by these dire revelations, Miller tells Brown with a straight face, "I thought we were all on the same side." Brown straightens out Miller, "Don't be naive." In fact, while Miller concentrates on tracking down General Al-Rawi, Briggs and his men use all the resources at their disposal to shadow Miller without his knowledge. Basically, Americans are trying to outsmart other Americans in this melodrama of deceit. Indeed, Poundstone has important reasons for General Al-Rawi’s silence. Principally, Al-Rawi knows the truth about the WMDs. Poundstone wants Al-Rawi dead, and Briggs is committed to carrying out his boss’s orders.
The problem with “Green Zone” is British director Paul Greengrass and scenarist Brian Helgeland want the movie to double as a top-notch, white-knuckled, nail-biter but also as an indictment of the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq based on faulty information. In other words, the skillful filmmakers have intermingled truth with fiction or what is designated in intellectual circles as a roman à clef. Essentially, a roman à clef occurs when writers ridicule real people, such as either celebrities or political officials, without using their actual names. In this instance, New York Times reporter Judith Miller becomes Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne and Iraqi politician Achmed Chalabi have been given a fictional equivalent. Remember, Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction served as the key rationale for military intervention. Ostensibly, Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran's insightful 2006 non-fiction book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" inspired Greengrass and Helgeland. For example, in the middle of all this mayhem, Baghdad has a place, referred to as a “Green Zone,” for people to enjoy themselves as if war were not raging outside. Moreover, Chandrasekaran wrote that pork is commonly served in the Green Zone despite the fact that Muslims staff these areas. They used Chandrasekaran’s book to forge the appropriate background for their expose about the bureaucratic arrogance and stupidity that Americans exhibited in Iraq.

Production designer Dominic Watkins, art directors Mark Bartholomew, Mark Swain, and Frederic Evard, along visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang and special effects supervisor Chris Carreras should not be overlooked for their contribution to the film’s authenticity. These guys deserve recognition for recreating war-torn Baghdad with such meticulous detail. For the record, Universal Studios lensed “Green Zone” in Spain and Morocco, but you’d swear you were deep in the heart of hostile territory in this riveting, slam-bang shoot’em up.

FILM REVIEW OF ''EDGE OF DARKNESS" (2010)

Mel Gibson delivers a devastating performance as a grief-stricken dad in “Casino Royale” director Martin Campbell’s remake of his own 1985 BBC mini-series “Edge of Darkness.” This revenge-themed rampage about a veteran Boston homicide detective who investigates the mysterious murder of his only daughter and the suspicious role that a shady corporation may have played in her death is far too gritty for its own good. No, “Edge of Darkness” (**1/2 OUT OF ****)is nothing like previous Gibson outings, such as either the charismatic “Lethal Weapon” franchise, “Conspiracy Theory” or “Payback.” Campbell and scenarists William Monahan of “The Departed” and Andrew Bovell of “Head On” alternate between Gibson’s investigation and surreal scenes between Gibson and his dead daughter that compare with similar scenes in the Peter Jackson movie “The Lovely Bones.” Meantime, Gibson remains appropriately grim-faced and humorless throughout this heavyweight but predictable 118-minute police procedural, political conspiracy thriller. Older, wiser, but every bit as lean and mean as he was in his “Mad Max” movies, our hero neither spouts witticisms nor has a twinkle in his eye. Basically, “Edge of Darkness” does not qualify as a big-dumb action opus with far-fetched stunts. The R-rated violence is brief, bloody, and brutal, something that will make the squeamish squirm. Mind you, it is fantastic to see Gibson back on the big screen after an eight-year hiatus, but this is not the kind of movie that you want to celebrate afterward with beer and pizza. The supporting cast, including Bojana Novakovic, Caterina Scorsone, Danny Huston, Jay O. Sanders, Peter Hermann , Ray Winstone, Shawn Roberts, and Tom Kemp, is commendable. Nevertheless, the tragic finale, the lackluster villains, and the shortage of enough surprises all undercut this suspenseful police thriller.

Veteran Boston homicide detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson of “What Women Want”) picks up his daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic of “Seven Pounds”), at the Boston Amtrak Station and drives her home. Along the way, Emma coughs up blood and starts bleeding from her nose. Once they reach the Craven residence, Emma gets worse, and Craven and she are heading out the door to the hospital when a masked gunman with a sawed-off shotgun gives Emma both barrels in the torso. The blast lifts Emma off the porch, catapults her backwards through the door, and sends her sprawling in a pool of blood down onto the living room floor. Before Craven has time to react, the killer has vanished into thin air. The news media believes the gunman had targeted Thomas, but instead accidentally killed his daughter. Initially, Thomas shares this mistaken assumption. Later, after he has sifted through his case files, our hero confesses that he has nobody mad enough at him to try and kill him. When he inventories his daughter’s things, he discovers a fully loaded automatic pistol registered to Emma’s boyfriend, Burnham (Shawn Roberts of “X-Men”), who is trying to keep a low profile, too. When Craven visits him, a very paranoid Burnham roughs him up and refuses to talk because he knows that he is under surveillance.

Eventually, Craven visits the North Moor Facility, where Emma worked on classified projects, and speaks to the Chief Operating Executive, Jack Bennett (Danny Huston of “The Aviator”), who expresses his condolences. An urbane Bennett assures Craven that the news of Emma’s demise not only shocked but also saddened everybody at work. Some forty-five minutes into this conspiracy thriller, Craven learns his daughter’s apartment has been ransacked and her computer stolen. He traces Emma’s cell phone calls, but everybody refuses to talk. One night an older man surprises Craven in his back yard. A cigar-smoking spook with an English accent and a District of Columbia driving license, Jedburgh (Ray Winstone of “Sahara”) explains that Emma had been tagged as a security threat to the United States. Craven is still mystified because his daughter told him nothing about her job. As the plot unfolds, our driven protagonist peels the layers off a metaphorically toxic onion and learns about a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels of government. Moreover, he finds himself tangling with gun-toting men in dark suits who cruise around in large SUVs with assault rifles in their arsenal. Before long our hero finds himself in a corner with nowhere to turn and the big guns coming after him.

The original version of “Edge of Darkness” appeared on the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom as a television mini-series about young environmental activist, Emma Craven (Joanne Whalley of the television mini-series “Scarlett”), killed under mystifying circumstances. Her father Ronald Craven (Bob Peck of “Jurassic Park”) of the West Yorkshire constabulary launches an investigation into an isolated nuclear waste storage facility on the Yorkshire dales, runs afoul of a C.I.A. agent (Joe Don Baker of “GoldenEye”) and bad things ensue. Martin Campbell and his writers have altered Troy Kennedy Martin's original teleplay, changed the setting, scaled back the action from 314 minutes to 117 minutes, but everything is essentially the same. Unfortunately, aside from it being Mel Gibson’s comeback film, “Edge of Darkness” boasts a lot of edge and too much darkness. The film unravels during its last half-hour and not even a slam-bang shoot-out can salvage the convoluted plotting. Danny Huston heads up the villains, but they make little, if any impression. The scenes without Gibson lack vigor and add little to the action. “Edge of Darkness” joins a long list of political conspiracy thrillers where the omnipotent villains eliminate everybody until the final scene when an envelope with all the incriminating evidence falls into the hands of the media.

Director Martin Campbell and his talented crew, including lenser Phil Méheux and editor Stuart Baird, have done a fine job staging the action. The scene where a motorist sideswipes a female informant and Gibson's cop character blasts away at the driver after he speeds toward our hero is a dynamite scene. You will never see it coming and that is what makes Méheux's photography and Baird's editing so engrossing. Sadly, the plot muddles up and this amounts to little more than an above-average revenge thriller.

FILM REVIEW OF ''EXECUTIVE ACTION" (1973)

This landmark movie--the first to tackle this controversial issue--integrates authentic black & white newsreel footage of John F. Kennedy before and after his assassination with a dramatized conspiracy to kill the President. "Executive Action" (*** out of ****) unfolds with the following prologue:"Before his death, former President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a three hour interview to a well-known television commentator. On May 2, 1970, when the interview was shown on a national television network, it included the message that certain material had been deleted at President Johnson's insistence. It has been revealed that in the censored section, Johnson had expressed misgivings about the finding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone, and that in fact, he (LBJ) suspected that a conspiracy had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy." The fascinating thing about this modest little picture is that the protagonists are all villains. Typically, a hero arises to defeat the adversaries, but no hero emerges in "Executive Action." Indeed, it is interesting to speculate whether this film could not have been produced before 1973 under the inflexible Production Code Administration simply because the villains win and nobody punishes them for their horrendous crime.

Director David Miller of "Lonely Are the Brave," "The Flying Tigers," and "Billy the Kid" helmed this provocative yarn that consists ostensibly of distinguished gentlemen--Washington power brokers acting as intermediaries--who assemble behind closed doors and discuss the plan to terminate JFK with extreme prejudice. The first meeting convenes on June 5, 1963. Affluent businessmen James Farrington (Burt Lancaster of "Elmer Gantry")and Foster (Robert Ryan of "The Proud Ones")spend a third of the time trying to convince influential Southern businessman Harold Ferguson (Will Greer of CBS-TV's "The Waltons") that Kennedy has put America on the wrong course. A professor warns them about the enormous power that the Kennedy dynasty wields, and they have laid out a time table that has JFK serving two terms as President and his two brothers Robert and Teddy serving two terms. "And in each administration, the brothers who are not president will take over the most powerful cabinet posts. They have several hundred million dollars and the best brains on earth to carry them through. They have put together a powerful coalition of big city machines, labor, Negroes, Jews, and that press that will make him unbeatable in 1964." Initially Ferguson shows skepticism. He points out that Kennedy "has appointed Republicans to the Treasury, the Navy, and another is head of the CIA. His brother Bobby worked on Joe McCarthy;s committee." Finally, he observes that Kennedy's father Joseph "is farther to the right than I am." The professor states that JFK will call for a test-ban treaty with the Soviets, lead the black revolution which will trigger a white backlash and blood in the streets and withdraw from Vietnam.

Before Farrington and Foster win Ferguson over to their cause, they explain that Europeans kill heads of state with conspiracies. In America, however, lone assassins with no familiarity with firearms have consistently either killed or tried to kill Presidents. First, the conspirators design an elaborate scenario to incriminate a fall guy--Lee Harvey Oswald--as the assassin. They study Oswald's troubled history and even suspect that he has been used by intelligence outfits for his jaunts to the USSR. Second, they decide to kill Kennedy while he is riding in a motorcade. Foster explains that "motorcades are scheduled well in advance and they give you a chance to fire from cover and getaway in the confusion." Farrington states that they will use "trained, reliable professionals." He elaborates: "They only possible scenario is three rifles with triangulated gunfire. Two firing at the retreating target. The third firing as the target advances." Interspersed among these exposition heavy conference scenes are scenes of two sniper teams practicing on dummies in a car drawn through remote locations. Ed Lauter of "The Longest Yard" plays the Operations Chief of Team A, and veteran character actor Dick Miller of "The Terminator" plays one of the snipers on the B Team. Indeed, this semi-documentary approach creates some question about the findings of the Warren Report that concluded beyond a doubt that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, gunned down the President on November 22,1963.

The top-notch cast, headed by Academy Award winner Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan,and Will Greer as the conspirators, is seasoned with many familiar character actors populating the supporting roles. Producer Edward Lewis was no slouch either, having produced the volatile political thriller "Seven Days in May" with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, but the clincher is that former blacklisted Hollywood 10 scenarist Dalton Trumbo penned the script. Initially, Trumbo said that he did not believe in a conspiracy, but after he read several books on the assassination as well as the Warren Commission Report, he changed his opinion. No, "Executive Action" is not a conventional assassination thriller. Everything about it is pretty straightforward and suspense is lacking, but the audacious subject matter compensates for these departures from the norm. After all, we know that the assassins didn't miss and Kennedy died. Essentially, this is a clevely edited, quasi-documentary with a superb cast. Nevertheless, "Executive Action" did not stir up the controversy that the sensational Oliver Stone movie "JFK" with Kevin Costner generated many years later. Nonetheless, in light of everything, "Executive Action" constituted a bold move and there hasn't been a film comparable to it. Producer Edward Lewis claims that threats were made against him in an effort to dissuade him from making the picture. This was actor Robert Ryan's final film appearance. Randy Edelman wrote the haunting theme music. The film ends with the observation that an inordinate number of eye witnesses to the assassination died afterward of unusual causes. I remember seeing this movie when it came out originally in theaters.

FILM REVIEW OF "TENTACLES" (1977)

Solid production values, Nestore Ungaro’s exemplary underwater photography, a name-dropping cast of vintage Hollywood stars, and a terrific fight between an octopus and two killers whales makes “Beyond the Door” director Ovidio G. Assonitis’s “Jaws” horror movie rip-off “Tentacles” (**1/2 out of ****) worth watching about a giant squid terrorizing a coastal American town. This octopus doesn’t discriminate when it comes to his diet. You can be an infant, an adult with a peg leg, a beautiful bikini clad dame, or an entire yacht itself and the eponymous predator will dine on you. Incidentally, though we don’t get to see the octopus that often, the octopus looks believable, not like the octopus in the Ed Wood classic “Bride of the Monster” (1955) that Bela Lugosi flailed around with in a hilarious scene. The octopus was clearly phony just as it was clear Lugosi was making all of its moves for the octopus. Additionally, this octopus looks better than the “Twenty-Thousand Leagues under the Sea” octopus. Happily, “Tentacles” isn’t laughable and Assonitis and company maintain a straight-faced, serious attitude toward these shenanigans and refrain from camping up the plot.

Sadly, the chief flaw in the screenplay by a quartet of scribes--Steven Carabatsos, Tito Carpi, Jerome Max, and Sonia Molteni--for this atmospheric creature feature is the shortage of sympathetic characters. Most of the suspense is undermined because only one of the stars winds up in jeopardy. Assonitis tastefully handles the death of an infant before he moves along with the usual victims of seagoing predators. Nevertheless, any movie that opens with an infant in a baby carriage serving as the initial snack for a gigantic squid cannot be one-hundred percent bad. Indeed, Assonitis and his scenarists do a splendid job of setting up the storyline, better than Spielberg did with “Jaws.” Underwater construction and the use of radio in the resort town of Solana Beach is what prompted the squid to prey on humanity and once it has had a taste of blood, it cannot assuage its appetite. The stalking scenes from the octopus’ perspective forge a sense of unease and eventually the sight of the squid traveling on top of the water like a submarine is kind of creepy. In fact, this “Jaws” rip-off anticipates “Jaws 2” by endangering a fleet of young boaters during a regatta. Unlike “Jaws,” “Tentacles” provides a reason for the appearance of the cannibal octopus.

After a baby in a carriage and a peg-legged sailor vanish in the ocean in separate incidents, Sheriff Robards (Claude Akins of “Return of the Seven”) and newspaper reporter Ned Turner (John Huston of “The Deserter”) investigate their disappearance. The bodies for the most part have been reduced to skeletons. A horribly decayed corpse washes up out of the drink at one point to scare a couple necking on a boat, but the rest of the victims have had their flesh peeling from their bones and the marrow sucked out of them. Sheriff Robards warns Turner not to sensationalize the story until they obtain more information. Perceptively, Turner observes that it all adds up to a nightmare.

Meanwhile, Mr. Whitehead, President of Trojan Construction (Henry Fonda of “The Grapes of Wrath”) reminds Turner to not draw hasty conclusions unless he can furnish the facts to back them up. Turner believes that Whitehead’s company and their underwater construction are to blame. Of course, Turner is right, but he doesn’t get an opportunity to bask in his beliefs. Whitehead discovers that overzealous engineer John Corey (Cesare Danova of CBS-TV’s “Garrison’s Guerrillas”) in an effort to accelerate the construction violated regulations. Whitehead orders Corey to stop his illegal activities in this California beachfront community.

Turner goes out of town to consult with Will Gleason (Bo Hopkins of “The Wild Bunch”) who is a scuba diver and marine biologist. Gleason informs Turner that the tentacles of an octopus are worse than the claws of a tiger. He has trained two killer Orcas and sends two underwater experts to the town to investigate for him. The giant squid attacks them when they go down to check out the ocean floor. Eventually, Gleason arrives in town with his wife to conduct the investigation himself. The day that he is not on his yacht, the octopus attacks the yacht and sinks it. In the middle of all this mayhem the squid eats Gleason’s wife. Gleason brings in his two whales. The last half-hour of “Tentacles” depicts the struggle between Gleason and his two Orcas with the huge octopus. Watching the Orcas tangle with the squid is like watching angry dogs tear into a bear. During the fight, the octopus touches off an underwater avalanche and Gleason is trapped.

Assonitis has made a better-than-average octopus opus, but the film lacks the general air of terror and enough scary scenes to make it a goose-bump inducing horror chiller. Largely, Assonitis’s claim to fame is his screamer “Beyond the Door.” “Beyond the Door” was an “Exorcist” style, satanic possession thriller that coined $40-million internationally while scaring up $10-million in the United States. Fonda confines himself to his house, while the Huston character and the Winters’ character are brother and sister. The major set-piece that “Jaws 2” appropriated, but on a smaller scale, is the regatta. “The Stranger Returns” composer Stelvio Cipriani employs a harpsichord for suspense in his imaginative orchestral soundtrack.