Fast forward past the shark attacks to the rescues & watch from there to the end. This is the only good part of the movie. Prior to that it is inaccurate & unwatchable shock value with 90's attitudes on 40's sailors. The screenwriter & director were clueless.
I saw a much better WWII version in the 70's & was horrified to learn about hundreds of sailors eaten by sharks for days until spotted by accident. Then using the Capt as a scapegoat so the gov't would be held blameless. Where was Truman's sense of propriety & honesty while this farce occurred? Not to mention the misguided families who believed the propaganda & cruelly made this innocent Captains life a living hell. He was also a victim in shark infested water as well as a scapegoat for merely surviving. Shame on the gov't & those ignorant families who stalked & tormented him to death.
This screenwriter had no business writing 40's dialogue & WWII behaviors. He was clearly writing with 1990's attitudes which didn't fit & ruined the movie with inaccurate BS. The blacks of the 40's did not behave like punks or taunt whites. Challenging would have been a death sentence. There was a separation between races in the military until Truman corrected it.
This movie has terrible dialogue, terrible characters & worse acting with bad story lines from the wrong decade. Stupid stunts like blacks spitting in food & harassing the whites, knife fights, fist fights, gang attitudes. Totally doesn't fit the 40's. Same with hispanics in the 40's. This scriptwriter & director couldn't even create believable behavior of stranded sailors in the ocean without food & water. All of these characters were right out of the 90's & unrecognizable for the 40's as were their side stories as portrayed.
The writer & director clearly had no Navy or background research either. The bell bottoms which were heavily starched were designed to create water wings when knotted in the ocean to keep the sailor afloat. This is true. Whether it worked in practical application is unknown. Even the life vests in the film were modern design as were the styrofoam floaters. This occurred in 1945. Not 1995. Clearly, no one did any research. They also forgot the ships were diesel not gasoline. But the director had the crew running around with multiple sailors on fire and explosions as if it were gasoline.
This movie tried to cash in on the horror & gore of a horrific historical event. They turned this travesty into a horror movie. Not even close to historical reality. Creative license on a true historical event is unacceptable.
Instead of focusing on gory scenes of fires, shark attacks & fictional 90's, the travesty of this horrific incident was the failure to escort the ship after it delivered its nuclear cargo; the failure of the Navy to report the missing ship & intercepted message; the loss of hundreds to sharks and the inexcusable persecution of the captain who later killed himself. Only after his death & the death of the Japanese sub commander who sought to clear the Captains name did they finally pardon the Captain & clean his record. After everyone involved was dead, it no longer mattered.
Now I learn the main scriptwriter was a foreigner & a neophyte who has no clue about US 40's attitudes since English is not his native tongue. The director was so spazzed at having Nick as his star that he couldn't function. While Nicholas was clearly not comfortable doing his speech to the ship crew, he obviously had no help from the director or the writers.
When one of the crew on the extras exclaimed how well they researched, I nearly fell over. Maybe the shark. The animatronics shark was so real I feared it might attract real sharks or they could mistake a real shark as fake. They should have filmed in a pool. As suspected, the crews main interest was in shark attacks not the story. They also could have saved the real seaplane by using CGI than losing a real one in the ocean. Especially an antique. They clearly chose an incompetent cheap CGI company to pocket more money. What loser idiots they were.
Cage was so uncomfortable as captain, he made all of us uncomfortable to watch him. I found myself waiting for Andy Griffith to start saying "Helloooo" over the speakers in a southern drawl.
Who would hand over $40 million for a limited theater release? That's why it flopped so grossly. It wasn't shown in most theaters except Philippines, Japan & a limited few US theaters.
They took one look at the extreme negative feedback & decided to eat the money loss than risk extreme damage to their reputations by distributing this mess. Honestly, would you want to go to the theater to watch a true story of a crew eaten by sharks. Fiction is one thing but the graphic deaths of hundreds of real sailors by sharks in a feeding frenzy is too much to stomach. It probably would have crashed & burned at the box office. The film & script were too terrible to fix.
This historical travesty should be known & seen but more as a TV movie or documentary about real life stories than the blood & gore aspect. The true travesty was the failure of our gov't to protect the ship & leave the crew to the mercy of enemy subs & sharks; then savagely convict the captain as a scapegoat to hide our gov'ts own accountability for this atrocious farce. No president corrected this outrage until over 55 years later after they were all dead.
Even on a well made movie this tragedy is difficult to watch. Between the sharks & gov't persecution of the scapegoat captain, those responsible should all burn in hell.
I saw a much better WWII version in the 70's & was horrified to learn about hundreds of sailors eaten by sharks for days until spotted by accident. Then using the Capt as a scapegoat so the gov't would be held blameless. Where was Truman's sense of propriety & honesty while this farce occurred? Not to mention the misguided families who believed the propaganda & cruelly made this innocent Captains life a living hell. He was also a victim in shark infested water as well as a scapegoat for merely surviving. Shame on the gov't & those ignorant families who stalked & tormented him to death.
This screenwriter had no business writing 40's dialogue & WWII behaviors. He was clearly writing with 1990's attitudes which didn't fit & ruined the movie with inaccurate BS. The blacks of the 40's did not behave like punks or taunt whites. Challenging would have been a death sentence. There was a separation between races in the military until Truman corrected it.
This movie has terrible dialogue, terrible characters & worse acting with bad story lines from the wrong decade. Stupid stunts like blacks spitting in food & harassing the whites, knife fights, fist fights, gang attitudes. Totally doesn't fit the 40's. Same with hispanics in the 40's. This scriptwriter & director couldn't even create believable behavior of stranded sailors in the ocean without food & water. All of these characters were right out of the 90's & unrecognizable for the 40's as were their side stories as portrayed.
The writer & director clearly had no Navy or background research either. The bell bottoms which were heavily starched were designed to create water wings when knotted in the ocean to keep the sailor afloat. This is true. Whether it worked in practical application is unknown. Even the life vests in the film were modern design as were the styrofoam floaters. This occurred in 1945. Not 1995. Clearly, no one did any research. They also forgot the ships were diesel not gasoline. But the director had the crew running around with multiple sailors on fire and explosions as if it were gasoline.
This movie tried to cash in on the horror & gore of a horrific historical event. They turned this travesty into a horror movie. Not even close to historical reality. Creative license on a true historical event is unacceptable.
Instead of focusing on gory scenes of fires, shark attacks & fictional 90's, the travesty of this horrific incident was the failure to escort the ship after it delivered its nuclear cargo; the failure of the Navy to report the missing ship & intercepted message; the loss of hundreds to sharks and the inexcusable persecution of the captain who later killed himself. Only after his death & the death of the Japanese sub commander who sought to clear the Captains name did they finally pardon the Captain & clean his record. After everyone involved was dead, it no longer mattered.
Now I learn the main scriptwriter was a foreigner & a neophyte who has no clue about US 40's attitudes since English is not his native tongue. The director was so spazzed at having Nick as his star that he couldn't function. While Nicholas was clearly not comfortable doing his speech to the ship crew, he obviously had no help from the director or the writers.
When one of the crew on the extras exclaimed how well they researched, I nearly fell over. Maybe the shark. The animatronics shark was so real I feared it might attract real sharks or they could mistake a real shark as fake. They should have filmed in a pool. As suspected, the crews main interest was in shark attacks not the story. They also could have saved the real seaplane by using CGI than losing a real one in the ocean. Especially an antique. They clearly chose an incompetent cheap CGI company to pocket more money. What loser idiots they were.
Cage was so uncomfortable as captain, he made all of us uncomfortable to watch him. I found myself waiting for Andy Griffith to start saying "Helloooo" over the speakers in a southern drawl.
Who would hand over $40 million for a limited theater release? That's why it flopped so grossly. It wasn't shown in most theaters except Philippines, Japan & a limited few US theaters.
They took one look at the extreme negative feedback & decided to eat the money loss than risk extreme damage to their reputations by distributing this mess. Honestly, would you want to go to the theater to watch a true story of a crew eaten by sharks. Fiction is one thing but the graphic deaths of hundreds of real sailors by sharks in a feeding frenzy is too much to stomach. It probably would have crashed & burned at the box office. The film & script were too terrible to fix.
This historical travesty should be known & seen but more as a TV movie or documentary about real life stories than the blood & gore aspect. The true travesty was the failure of our gov't to protect the ship & leave the crew to the mercy of enemy subs & sharks; then savagely convict the captain as a scapegoat to hide our gov'ts own accountability for this atrocious farce. No president corrected this outrage until over 55 years later after they were all dead.
Even on a well made movie this tragedy is difficult to watch. Between the sharks & gov't persecution of the scapegoat captain, those responsible should all burn in hell.