Alex da Silva Ex-junkie author David Hemmings (Tim) is chilling out in Italy and agrees to meet his aunt Flora Robson (Lucy) for lunch in Pompeii. I'm afraid that's not going to happen – Robson doesn't make it. She's been strangled. Hemmings wants to find out more about her aunt's life and pursues his own investigation back in London. However, there is a network called 'The Stepping Stones' that seems hell-bent on preventing him from discovering anything. He's a marked man unless he drops his curiosity.It's a tense film if a little complicated at times as you're never quite sure who's who. Basically, suspect everyone who Hemmings comes into contact with. The cast are good and the story unravels well but the ending just didn't do it for me. I wanted something better as things don't get resolved in the manner I had wanted. And the music by Johnny Harris is laughably inappropriate. I see that some nutter has previously referred to it as a superb music score. He clearly has no knowledge of how to score a film. The film leaves unanswered questions and that was a let-down for me.

Leofwine_draca This is a complex, involving thriller which requires immediate attention from mystery fans. The clues and puzzles build up thick and fast in this disturbing masterpiece which will have you hooked right from the beginning. The tension builds slowly to breaking point at the film's conclusion. Then comes one of those twist endings which totally changes your perception of the rest of the film.As you might have guessed, I absolutely loved this film. It has the same style and atmosphere as many Italian-made gialli which is somewhat surprising, seeing as it's a British film. The Italian links are even stronger seeing as it shares the hero of one of Argento's best films, DEEP RED, namely David Hemmings. There's a definite feeling of the "swinging sixties" in the jazzy, upbeat music which plays frequently and the crisp colour photography really brings the surroundings and characters to life.David Hemmings is a charismatic and talented actor who conveys well the haunting expressions and outbursts of a disturbed man. He is supported by a good cast of British stalwarts, popping up in minor roles are the seemingly-omnipotent Wilfrid Hyde-White, plus Daniel Massey, Arthur Lowe and others. Fans of recent conspiracy thrillers will enjoy the conspiracy and paranoia surrounding Hemmings in this film, and it's one of those movies in which you aren't really sure what's happening, so needs to be seen at least twice. This is a thoroughly entertaining, intelligent thriller which remains riveting from start to finish.

jonathan-577 This British - very British - thriller trades on the good name of David Hemmings, who at this time still had substantial "Blow Up" cachet left to p*ss away. His jaded ex-junkie finds his aunt murdered one sunny vacation, and sets out to find out whodunit amid many threatening overtures from big nasties. The main selling point here is a wild and wholly inappropriate soundtrack from one Johnny Harris - Hemmings is just shlepping around the funeral doing nothing in particular, and in comes that damned 'screaming flute' with attendant bongos. It's not embarrassingly bad, but it is dull for long stretches of dialogue in between its set pieces, and for all its attempts to be tense and/or creepy the plot's passing resemblance to Argento's "Deep Red" (also with Hemmings) does this no favours at all.

chrisdfilm Richard Sarafian is a decidedly underrated director. After finally seeing this, it's satisfying to report his VANISHING POINT was not a flash-in-the-pan. FRAGMENT...does not move at the same pace, nor does it get the viewer involved quite as quickly, but once you're about twenty minutes in, you're hooked until the end as Sarafian and screenwriter Dehn continually manipulate reality and our perceptions of it, along with lead character David Hemmings' perceptions of it. Really brilliant in the way it portrays a matter-of-fact unfolding of events that seem like a conventional, yet still insidious conspired-murder-by-blackmail-ring plot. But then we're constantly shown by the dialogue and actions of other characters that these events we've just witnessed may never have occurred. As an audience, we're constantly being shifted back and forth, momentarily convinced that recovering-addict-turned-successful-writer Hemmings is undergoing paranoid delusions, then the next moment convinced there really is a vast conspiracy against him and his investigation into his rich aunt's death. Disturbing and constantly involving, sucking the viewer in until the shocking conclusion. Unfortunately, the film's one real liability, which may in fact be the reason for some viewers' antipathy toward this film, is its totally inappropriate music score. Not only is the score mixed too loud on the soundtrack, it repeatedly draws attention to itself, often diffusing the effects Sarafian is trying to achieve. If only they had gotten someone like John Dankworth who could have composed a similar jazzy score but much more subtly and in keeping with the film's rhythms. Of course, even better would have been Ennio Morricone, someone who had already scored many Italian giallo thrillers that had attempted to play with reality in a similar way. Whomever hired Johnny Harris made a big mistake. His score is the one thing that keeps this from being a genuine little masterpiece.