Torpedo!

This is one of these films that we don't get nowadays and hasn't been produced for decades . Hardly surprising since 1945 only two submarines have killed ships in conflict . The first one being the Pakistani submarine PNS Hangor that sunk the Indian frigate INS Khukri in the 1971 India - Pakistan war and the last time was the Argentine Cruiser The General Belgrano being sunk by HMS Conqueror in the 1982 Falklands War . On top of the 1981 movie DAS BOOT has got to be the last word on this sub genre of war movie . It's very easy to express tension in these type of movies , of having silent routine as enemy ships patrol over head dropping depth charges and have close ups of submarine crewmen with beads of sweat slowly dripping down there foreheads but DAS BOOT did this type of drama so effectively and so vividly any successor would be a very pale imitation

TORPEDO RUN on its own merits isn't a bad film . It doesn't break any new ground but follows the formula rather well . Like so many other films especially American war films there's a fair bit of artistic licence used such as no American submarine actually penetrated the Tokyo harbour during the war and the mega massive Japanese aircraft carrier is an invention for the film . There is a slightly annoying aspect and that is many of the model shots look unconvincing but this is common problem seeing as scale involving fire and water are impossible to achieve on screen and even DAS BOOT suffered slightly from this

One thing the film does deserve great credit for is the British character Lt Redley played by Robert Hardy . All too often recent American productions such as SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and BAND OF BROTHERS portray the Brits as either amateurish buffoons needing rescuing by the tough , brave and resourceful Americans or make an already bad situation much worse leaving the hard pressed Americans to pick up the pieces while the British stop to drink some tea . Here we see Redley put forward a suggestion that gets the crew out of a very tight spot . Nice to see the war shown as a joint effort amongst allies who had a mutual respect for one another