But the tension is superficial – more a function of dramatic lighting and some well-timed bangs than an active investment in the characters’ plights. There is a particular tactile thrill in watching the shifting positions of enemy vessels being plotted in real time in wax pencil – and a very different one in seeing the surface of the grey-blue water suddenly struck through with white, like a just-shattered car windscreen, when a depth charge explodes down below. Still, the procedural details are all nicely observed. If it wasn’t for Covid, you can bet this would be screening in 4DX.
Submarine movie greyhound simulator#
As such, the film plays less like the Hanksian character study you might be hoping for – a new Captain Phillips, or Sully – than a Battle of the Atlantic simulator ride with a casting golden ticket. Yet beyond such grace notes, there’s little sense of Ernie’s inner life or what he stands for, and even a prologue in which he bids farewell to his angelic sweetheart (Elisabeth Shue, the only woman in the picture) feels tokenistic rather than revealing. We meet him praying in his quarters, haloed in heavenly light, while on deck he shrinks at jingoism: when a younger crew member cheers the demise of “50 Krauts” after a U-boat is sunk, Ernie gently reminds him that they were officers too. It is easy to see what drew Hanks to Forester’s novel, since Ernie’s decency is so foregrounded in the script. Wedged in the frame of his cabin mirror is a verse from Hebrews: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Everything else, though, hangs in the balance. The year is 1942 – a point in the Second World War when the Mid-Atlantic gap had yet to be closed, and Nazi U-boats still prowled the ocean untroubled by anti-submarine aircraft.Įrnie is a long-serving career officer on his first wartime mission, but is keenly aware of the of the treacherousness of the historical moment, even before the inevitable onslaught begins. (This is his third film script, after That Thing You Do! and Larry Crowne, both of which also contained plum roles for their writer.) An adaptation of the 1955 CS Forester novel The Good Shepherd, this one tells the story of Ernest Krause, a US Navy commander at the helm of a destroyer which escorts an Allied supply convoy across the Atlantic. In theory, Greyhound should offer an interesting spin on the Hanks screen persona, in no small part because Hanks wrote it. Yet wherever in space and time his characters are struggling, the takeaway is generally the same: if he can get through it with stoicism, humility and grace, then perhaps so can we. Since his mid-1990s move away from comedy, Hanks has been Hollywood’s preeminent ordinary chap who weathers extraordinary times, from desert-island exile in Cast Away to extraterrestrial disaster in Apollo 13. As for Tom Hanks? Twee as it might sound, the man inspires.
Clint glares, Jack crackles, Marlon smoulders: it’s why we go to them, and keep coming back. True movie stars are among the trustiest brands around.
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