Good concept, poorly executed.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

As my wife is the great grand daughter of Adml. Momsen this movie teaches the historical fact as to the type of person he was. I will get a copy of it. The acting was great as they showed all the emotion involved in a tragic event in the US Navy history.

The one positive thing that struck me about this film effort was that it was not overly sentimental or melodramatic even though what we ARE dealing with here is the most basic emotions of pain and suffering for loved ones, whether spouses or peers.Sam Neill does a fine turn here with his well-known understated treatment. The very capable ensemble of supporting actors also brought respect to this noble and deserving tale.I am not a Navy man so if there were inconsistencies or inaccuracies, I was not the wiser. In any case, I never felt as if I were being manipulated or deceived. The telling was sober and respectful.Just honest storytelling of a long unduly forgotten act of collective heroism. We need to see more stories like this.

This is a relatively faithful recounting of the dramatic rescue of most of the crew of USS Squalus, which went down while conducting diving drills near the Portsmouth, NH Navy Yard in October 1939.Of course, some liberties had to be taken for dramatic purposes, but key events, such as the divers suffering from the effects of such a deep dive (over 230 feet), and the fact that the rescue bell got stuck coming up with the last of the survivors, requiring yet another harrowing dive to free them, are handled well. Considering the press attention this event got at the time, the total absence of reporters from the movie is surprising, but sort of refreshing in a way.That said, I never really was engrossed in this movie, with many of the dramatic moments falling flat. Maybe that's because I knew how it would turn out, but still, one would think the film could be a bit better paced. All in all, a 7.

I'm a military buff and an ex-Navy man, so I'm drawn to this type of movie whether its good or a stinker. Dramatically, I thought this movie worked quite well. There's action, but the viewer isn't hit over the head with it (pun intended). There are elements of the movie that appeal to men (fishing for a submarine with a grapling hook) and elements that appeal to women (the admiral's poor daughter lost her fiance).I'm not intimately familiar with the real story of the Squalus rescue that this movie is based on, so I may be wrong about this, but I suspect liberties were taken with certain facts in the name of dramatic license. For example, the diving bell almost didn't make it back to the surface on the last of four trips. Swede Momsen, our protagonist, jumps into the water to tie a line on the contraption then proceeds to exhort the crew to "heave!" the bell to the surface by pulling on the rope. I have a hard time believing that really happened.The filmmakers did pretty well with the military courtesy, but I wonder if Momsen really got away with calling the admiral by his first name with enlisted men within earshot. There's also a scene where someone salutes the admiral indoors. (The Navy only salutes outdoors.)And lastly, the multiculturalists evidently had something to say about the casting of this movie because there is a black crewman on the submarine and one or two black crewmen in the crowd on the surface. I guess I can't blame the movie makers for doing this because the alternative is to be criticized by black activists, but that's not the way the Navy was in 1939.All in all, though, a good movie. I gave it a seven.