Today, being big fans of Jaws, we watched USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, a film concerning the mission that Robert Shaw tells us Quint was involved in, whilst on the Orca.
We had seen a TV movie called Mission of the Shark starring Stacy Keach many a year ago but the cast on this one was too good to give it a miss.
A cast that is headlined by Nicolas Cage, with a young cast to reflect those on the mission, Including Adam Scott Miller; Max Ryan and Matt Lanter, who we now know from TV’s Timeless and
He has able support, albeit in smaller roles from the likes of James Remar; Tom Sizemore and Thomas Jane (who we still hope one day to see in a Deep Blue Sea sequel)
To add to the Jaws connection, the film is also directed by Mario Van Peebles who played Jake in Jaws: The Revenge
We must admit we had our concerns on how good the film would be, when it arrived straight to DVD, as sadly most Nic Cage films seem to do, as he pays his bills (that being said, these smaller, almost B-movie productions are still great for him to deliver some fun performances, which we prefer to say other actors who churn out cringe-worthy adverts instead)
The film is a good watch, yet sadly is not the big movie drama we hoped for, it follows the actual events quite closely, to the extent it feels like a movie made for a history channel rather than for popcorn entertainment.
The first hour of the film introduces us to all the young crew members, and we see some clichés of men about to get married and saying they will be back etc
We then get the Indianapolis bombed by the Japanese sub, which sees those crew members go into the water and we do get some Shark attacks but it seems to last about the length of Quint’s retelling about the events.
It never actually goes to show how much peril those in the water are, this is of course part in the budget, as clearly they only had money for a few animatronic sharks, yet they are better than some of those we have seen in other Shark B Movies, and we’ve seen a few!
We then see how the crew survive until rescued and then the film follows the case of how Captain Charles McVay was blamed for the call to abandon ship and we follow the court case and its outcome.
The film ends with footage of those on the actual Indianapolis adding to the fact that this is a good historical representation of the events but not the tense shark infested drama we had maybe hoped for.
It is a good watch, held in part by a great performance by Cage and the young cast do well in their roles too, it is certainly better than most straight to DVD films and if want to see a visual telling of Quint’s tale from Jaws, this is worth a watch
You can view the trailer here:
You can buy the film at Amazon here:
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