In Enemy Hands

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

I just rented this film (on DVD) because I liked the cast. In the case of William H Macy, I just trust his choice in scripts. Whatever he chooses to play, should I choose to watch. We seem to have the same taste somehow. So I hoped it would work again with this film.

I'm not interested in submarines, I'm not eager to watch films set in any war, I'm not even particularly fond of Til Schweiger, our German heartthrob, although Thomas Kretschmann is definitely an interesting actor. One to watch, believe me. But still this film fascinated me. So trusting Macy's choice worked once again.

The story had a couple of twists which I always like, dialogue in two languages (one third German, two thirds English) which is even better, and quite well developed (main) characters. All this makes a good film, not brilliant, but good. Good craftsmanship. I liked the German actors's "natural" accents, thankfully they were not forced to have worse accents than they normally have. And I liked in particular that at least in the leading roles it were Germans the filmmakers hired and not some Swedes, Americans or Britons replacing them like in other films like Ronin (Swede= Stellan Skarsgard) or Die Hard (Briton= Alan Rickman).

So, I think I can recommend this film, even to people outside the probable target group of young men. This film is not so much about war and fighting, but about the possibility of enemies working together and even becoming friends if you get the chance to get to know each other better and realizing, we are all humans after all.

8 out of 10.

Every movie doesn't have to be academy award material. In fact many if not most movies try to be entertaining with interesting ideas. This is one of those movies. A WWII submarine backdrop that forces an alliances between two fighting sides for mutual survival. Ya, sub experts can pick apart some of the tech and tactics but that's not the point of the movie. It's like going to a stage play and picking apart the stage props as not being realistic. It's not the stage but the story that is interesting in this movie. As the world faces global warming, expensive energy, nuclear issues we all can take a lessen that working together to solve our problems would be far more productive than trying to kill each other (the under lying story of this movie).

It has an interesting story executed poorly. I couldn't figure out if this was supposed to be a serious drama or light camp. Acting was average with standouts William H Macy carrying the film as well as the German executive officer. Still it actually moved well for me and I was entertained by it. I have a keen interest in U-boats having traveled the world to see them as well as the US fleet subs. The feats performed in this movie by the submarines underwater is essentially science fiction in pre-1945 submarine warfare. Loads of other technical errors as well in the production, but in a quick and dirty film who cares. It was made on a budget and that's that. So if you want to really see reality, Das Boot still stands alone. I give it 5 starts, for sloppy production, but still recommend it over most of the garbage on Netflix.

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.