Britain is threatened by a terrible disease that attacks plants &
animals alike, so the gouvernment resorts to desperate measures &
plans to bomb all major cities. Thank god John Custance (Nigel
Davenport) did get advance warning about that from his friend Roger (John
Hamill), so Roger & John with family - wife Ann (Jean Wallace),
daughter Mary (Lynne frederick), son Davey (Nigel Rathbone) & the
son's best friend Spooks (Christopher Lofthouse) decide to head for the
countryside to find refuge at John's brother Daniel's (Patrick Holt) farm
... but getting there is not as easy as it sounds, as somehow rumours
about the bombing have leaked throught to the public, & anarchy has
broken out.
Eventually, John & Roger reckon they need weapons, but the local
armsdealer (George Coulouris) refuses to give them some without proper
permit, even though John offers to take him with them to a safe place ...
However, the armsdealer's employee Pirrie (Anthony May) sees some reason
in that proposition, shoots down his boss, supplies John & Roger with
weapons but in exchange invites himself & his wife Clare (Wendy
Richard) along for the ride. John accepts, mainly because he figures they
would need someone who can properly handle a gun ...
Later, the car with John & his wife & daughter is cut off from
the other 2 cars, John is knocked out by some brutes & his wife &
daughter are dragged off & gangraped. Only eventually can John, Roger
& Pirrie catch up with them again, & shoot the attackers or chase
them away. And wife Ann takes great pleasure in shooting one of her
rapists dead herself.
When at a later incident, John sees Pirrie shooting Clare in cold
blood, it dawns on John that the man might be a ticking timebomb ...
however he hushes up the incident, as he needs a good gunman. Later,
Pirrie & John's daughter Mary become quite friendly, much to his
dismay, & to Roger's dismay as well, since he is engaged to her ...
Soon, John's little group runs into an ambush, by former model citizens
who have since grown desperate enough to rob them of their cars &
their guns. Soon, John & company have to resort to stealing guns
(& even killing for them) as well.
When John's little group crosses path with another group of armed &
desperate London fugitives, he offers to take them with him to his
brother's place, if they all follow his orders, & so soon John has a
little army of his own ... which he needs too, since they eventually find
themselves having to shoot it out with a gang of bikers as well as the
regular army ... but finally they make it to John's brother Daniel's
place.
Daniel however, seeing the lot that John has brozught him, is less than
pleased, & claims that his farm can't support all of them, just John's
family & Roger, as was agreed on.
However, since John doesn't want to leave his lot alone, he decides to,
using guerilla tactics, sneak into the farm with Pirrie & try to shoot
Daniel's guards to force their way in - but John doesn't want his brother
to get hurt. But of course, if you play with guns, someone is bound to get
hurt, & often it's the wrong person, so soon enough, Pirrie &
Daniel shoot each other dead.
Only now does John realize what he's about to do, & the last shot
has him moving on with his lot, to a safe haven somewhere else.
Even if the story as such is a different one, in tone, in its
unquestioned approval of raw violence & glorification of guns, No
Blade of Grass resembles most closely Ray Milland's Panic
in Year Zero from 8 years before - & suffers from pretty much
the same shortcomings: The more interesting aspects of the story are
obscured by unreflected reactionary messages, & especially one central
narrateive thread - that of Pirrie as a ticking timebomb in John's lot -
is totally lost somewhere along the way, & in the end, Pirrie is not
only shot rather unspectacularly, he even apologizes to John for having
shot his brohter with his dieing breath.
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