Happy, and even somewhat proud, to be able to say that cinema in my home country underwent an incredibly evolution in the past two decades; - and cult/horror in a mere span of 10 years. In the 80s and 90s, it was impossible to gather proper funding or any other type of support for eccentric cinema in Belgium, so there only existed underground trash-classics, like "Rabid Grannies" or "Lucker the Necrophagous". It's only since 2014 that we have our first official slasher film (with "Welp"), since 2018 that we have our first zombie splatter film (with "Yummy"), and now we finally also have our very own historically inaccurate exploitation epos with "Torpedo".
"Torpedo" comes forth out of love and admiration for over-the-top "men on an impossible mission" movies, like "The Dirty Dozen", the Italian "Quel maledetto treno blindato" or - more recently - Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Bastards". Haters, and sourpusses altogether, discredit the genre because the films are 100% historically incorrect. But who cares, seriously, when they are so entertaining, exhilarating and imaginative.
During WWII, a group of Belgian resistance fighters are known as the Bad Eggs. They excel in pulling off suicide missions, but not so efficient when it comes to taking prisoners. The Nazis they capture usually lose their heads before able to release useful information to the allied troops. In '43 they are recruited for a bizarre mission to transport a shipment of uranium from Congo to the US in a confiscated German submarine. None of them ever set foot in a U-boat, they are forced to collaborate with a former Nazi as their captain, and the cross-Atlantic journey is full of enemy ships and death traps.
Evidently, "Torpedo" isn't without defaults, but it's primarily a praiseworthy accomplishment. Praiseworthy because debuting writer/director Sven Huybrechts delivers a visually striking film with a relatively small budget. He gathers a phenomenal (for Belgian standards) cast, collected impressive sets and scenery, and realized top-notch special effects. The script still contains slightly too much drama, like the flashbacks lead character Stan suffers from, but the flamboyant and deliberately insane highlights are stupendous. Stan shoots a plane out of the sky while the submarine is already diving is fantastic, the Nazis boarding the submarine assuming the crew are fellow Germans is quite suspenseful and the chemistry between the Belgian "bastards", with their juicy Antwerp accents, is often downright funny.
"Torpedo" comes forth out of love and admiration for over-the-top "men on an impossible mission" movies, like "The Dirty Dozen", the Italian "Quel maledetto treno blindato" or - more recently - Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Bastards". Haters, and sourpusses altogether, discredit the genre because the films are 100% historically incorrect. But who cares, seriously, when they are so entertaining, exhilarating and imaginative.
During WWII, a group of Belgian resistance fighters are known as the Bad Eggs. They excel in pulling off suicide missions, but not so efficient when it comes to taking prisoners. The Nazis they capture usually lose their heads before able to release useful information to the allied troops. In '43 they are recruited for a bizarre mission to transport a shipment of uranium from Congo to the US in a confiscated German submarine. None of them ever set foot in a U-boat, they are forced to collaborate with a former Nazi as their captain, and the cross-Atlantic journey is full of enemy ships and death traps.
Evidently, "Torpedo" isn't without defaults, but it's primarily a praiseworthy accomplishment. Praiseworthy because debuting writer/director Sven Huybrechts delivers a visually striking film with a relatively small budget. He gathers a phenomenal (for Belgian standards) cast, collected impressive sets and scenery, and realized top-notch special effects. The script still contains slightly too much drama, like the flashbacks lead character Stan suffers from, but the flamboyant and deliberately insane highlights are stupendous. Stan shoots a plane out of the sky while the submarine is already diving is fantastic, the Nazis boarding the submarine assuming the crew are fellow Germans is quite suspenseful and the chemistry between the Belgian "bastards", with their juicy Antwerp accents, is often downright funny.