USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage

I was really interested in this movie but oh boy, what have these people done? This is one of the worst CGI works I have seen in years, they simply destroyed the movie as a whole. The ship appears washed out, never matches the surroundings. Every action scene is CGI'd, in a cheap way. Scenes on the deck, when explosions happen are clearly fireworks!!! I could not believe my eyes. And some scenes are repeated! I never reviewed on IMDb but created an account just to tell others what a bad work this was. I was really interested in the movie but the lousy work that has been done simply could not pass without being noticed. Watch it and see for yourself. What a disappointment!

Well, I don't think this movie was quite as bad as some reviewers are making it. I do agree that the direction left something to be desired. Some of the early part of the film was a little sloppy. There were short scenes that seemed to come out of nowhere, and didn't seem to have anything to do with the flow of what we were seeing. As a former military man, I was astonished to see a scene where Nicolas Cage wore a mis-matched khaki naval uniform. Never happen, folks. However, I thought the movie got a little better as it went along. I was very disappointed that race had to be inserted into this. There didn't seem to be any reason why race had to play ANY part in this story. I don't know why so many directors (& producers and writers) seem to feel the need to do this (well, I have my suspicions, but that's a story for another day). The scene of the cook spitting on an officers piece of pie was despicable, and I wondered why that was even included in this. It served absolutely no real purpose. This was, supposedly, a crack naval ship and crew, entrusted with a top secret mission, and a sailor is spitting on an officer's food? But the survival scenes were done fairly well, and it was clear the incredible suffering & tragedy these men were exposed to. I thought the movie started rather poorly, but improved as it went along. I think, perhaps, Van Peebles is lacking in experience, and bit off a bit more than he could chew, but, all in all, I thought it was a decent enough movie. Cage played a fairly stoic, controlled character, but I think that was a good choice on his part. The story was what needed attention, not some overblown character. He seemed to hit the right note as a Naval Ship Captain. The actors all did adequate jobs, and it wasn't exactly a terrible movie.

Men of Courage is not meant to be anything more than a generic mid- budget war movie with sharks, but it underdelivers even if you keep your expectations low. The script follows historical events pretty closely, but writing has lots of flaws, and romantic storyline is disappointing. Nicolas Cage gives a sensible performance, but his character doesn't move anywhere from "good captain" cliché. The writers add lots of voice-over narration to add depth to characters, which makes things worse. The Japanese captain is reduced to ridicule near the ending, where the two captains burst into tears while saluting each other.

If you only look for special effects, war scenes and sharks wreaking havoc, this movie won't be any less disappointing. Warship effects are of acceptable quality (for television at least), but man-eating sharks are either roughly made CGI, or replaced with smaller sharks which are obviously harmless. Not a single scene shows sharks biting humans; edits carefully avoid that part. No attention is given to the actual details of shark species present on the site of USS Indianapolis demise. For a movie that closely follows actual events (and even includes documentary footage), Men of Courage has an unacceptable number of inaccuracies. It's also badly edited, with scenes interrupted and tied together in strange places. Two hours last like four.

The story of USS Indianapolis appears more fascinating when you read the sources and memoirs, and it certainly deserves a better adaptation than one made by this movie's screenwriters.

Years ago I read "Abandon Ship" the story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis by Richard F. Newcomb. It 's not the book the film is based on.

In some ways that's a pity. Although Newcomb's book was first published in 1960, it is a masterly account of the disaster and recounted events that are not in the film. I always remembered his description of the strong swimmers who rode herd on their weaker comrades pulling them back when they drifted away until they themselves used up their reserves of energy and drowned - many of the bravest acts of WW2 were not necessarily in the heat of battle.

Somewhere along the way, much of the drama leaked from this film.

It's unusual these days to see a movie where the special effects are not absolutely dazzling. They might be a cut above the old Hollywood bathtub effects, but the limitations of the effects in this film draw attention away from the story.

But that isn't the key weakness in "USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage".

Although Nicholas Cage gives a fine performance as Captain McVay, and the ending does have some punch, the filmmakers weren't content with what really happened, and added some very predicable fictional elements. Was it really necessary for Craig Tate and Johnny Wactor's characters to duplicate the scene from "Titanic" where Kate Winslet saves Leonardo DiCaprio from imprisonment in the nick of time? It's the forced backstories that rob the film of stature.

There was no need to expend so much energy on the fake elements. Here is a passage from Newcomb's book describing what happened when Lieutenant Gwinn, the pilot of the PV-1 Ventura who first spotted the men in the water was taken aboard the hospital ship "Tranquility" and introduced to the survivors as the guy who found them.

"Men in all stages of recovery, some weak and hollow-eyed on their beds shouted cheered and whispered. Those who could, crowded around and thumped him on the back, laughing and jumping. Some merely turned their heads on their pillows and cried softly, and the quiet, reticent Gwinn himself broke down under the flood of emotion".

I think I would have had that scene in my movie.

A truly poor movie, with fictional "back story" added in, for no discernible reason that I can see. Using a battleship to represent a cruiser is a ludicrous idea(the USS Alabama was nearly three times the size of the Indianapolis,) and the resultant footage is awful..... the actual story has been trivialised and misrepresented, and Mr Cage hasn't done his acting credibility any good at all. The whole story has already been done to better effect and on a fraction of the budget of this shambolic effort in the made-for-TV movie "Mission of the Shark" .If you want to learn all about the events of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, either watch that movie, or watch the five minute sequence in the movie "Jaws" where Robert Shaw tells the whole story, simply, and brilliantly. This latest film really isn't worth the time it takes to watch it.....