In Enemy Hands

The acting's is matched by the mediocre writing at first I thought the movie hadn't been completed, rather unpolished and crudely acted. The commander of the U.S. submarine may have damaged his back while "throwing his chest out" in lieu of acting. Almost every scene is nothing more than a cliche' of all other underwater adventures, after painfully reading and rereading the reviews which seem to be apologies exceeded by previous entries. Why all the fuss and excuses, venturing a guess there is none? Could I find the patience or desire to finish this story having read and watched similar, perhaps the more youthful critics will have the endurance to tolerate these flaws no doubt they may have "hero's" and be more forgiving.

The film is based on historic deeds,thus the construction of new U-boats continued at a record -breaking during WWII. In 1942-43 Hitler raised enormously his U-boat strength,the German submarines sank numerous ships,in early 1943 the called ¨Wolf packs¨sank 90 ships in 20 days.Then,suddenly ,between March and June 1943,an exceptional change took place .The Allies began to win the war against Hitler's underwater in the Battle of the Atlantic.By this time the technique of submarines warfare had advanced far beyond that used in the beginning the war.The Allies pitted thousands of boats,seamen,destroyers,cruisers,subs,cannons and billion of dollars against the undersea craft .As early as December 1943 Karl Doeniz ,the architect and designer of U-boat campaign,admitted the grave turn in events.The cost was great on both sides .In the six years of war ,the Germans,by their own statistics,destroyed more than 2000 British,Allied ships in the sea.Hitler had built 1162 subs ,of which 783 were lost.Of the 41000 men recruited into the underwater service ,between 28000 and 32000 lost their lives and 500 were taken prisoners.

The picture narrates as the USS Swordfish underwater commanded by Cmdr Randall(Scott Caan) and the sergeant(William H. Macy)and with the crew(Jeremy Sisto,Sam Huntington among others)is sunk ,then they are captured by a Nazi U-Boat 424 commanded by a captain(Til Schweiger) and officer(Thomas Kretschman). The Americans led by the sergeant try to take over the German sub and to make their way back home confronting against Nazis sailors ,through enemies destroyers they manage to arrive at three hundred miles US coast.The movie contains nail-biting action,drama,suspense in a claustrophobic atmosphere although complemented with some of archive stock footage.

The film provides a realistic detailing of life aboard and a portrait about the crews subjected to stressful and psychological tensions.In fact the sailors had sleep in shifts.For months they were lodged in close quarters because every inch the space was needed for machinery,supplies and torpedoes.The air was heavy with odors from bilges,diesel oil and unwashed bodies.The men faced sudden death from depth charges ,aerial bombing attacks or the sharp bow of a swift destroyer as happen in this film.

hello everybody, having read several comments on this movie, I feel like doing the same myself. I didn't expect too much out of it when I took it home to watch it. the story to my mind has a very unique idea as a layer, I liked it very much. still I thought it was a bit much on the cliché-side, but still very good. The acting was quite amazing at times, especially macy and kretschmann did a great job. personally I never liked schweiger that much, but he did a great job on this movie too. some minor roles were quite good i thought, such as rene heger's. what i liked most about the movie were the dialogs between macy and kretschmann, especially towards the end, quite touching i thought. all in all, i think its a movie that is worth watching.

This movie is a watchable one. It's not really a memorable one though but when you decide to watch it, it won't bore you.

When the movie began I was kind of worried. The editing was poor and the acting horrible B-movie like and it had a made-for-TV kind of look. But thankfully all those things improved later as the movie progressed.

It's obvious that the budget wasn't very big since they had to use stock footage from movies like "U-571" and even "Down Periscope". They also used stock footage from real WW II Destroyers and other boats which was pretty obvious at times, it was kind of amateur-like and unrealistic the way it was edited into the movie.

The story is pretty solid, despite some awfully weak dialog at times. It was at first kind of weird that the movie focused on both the Americans and Germans in the same way but later in the movie it becomes obvious why. The movie mostly fails to become tense but still its perfect good entertainment to watch all.

Not a must see by any means but when you decide to see it nevertheless, you will be fairly entertained. And hey it has got William H. Macy and Thomas Kretschmann and some other well known actors in small roles in it, which makes this movie absolutely, very well watchable.

7/10

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His bad acting and dbag personality just tanked this movie for me