L'affondamento del Laconia - 12 settembre 1942

Over time many movies have pictured how the German Navy and Army conducted themselves in WWII. I don't write Nazies, because that is a political party and in general the Germans fought for their country. That being said, all sides of the war had their share of murders. If you think the allies never did anything wrong, you are very naive.

The submarine part of the German navy was led by Donitz and banned any political propaganda from the sub pens and submarines.

Its very known that if British and German submarines would meet, they would greet each other and part, due to respect for each others profession.

The movie itself shows the balance between being humane and full fill your obligations as a submariner.

I couldn't disagree more with the other review already posted.

I found it a very convincing piece of drama, especially the u-boat scenes were reminiscent of the other great u-boat drama "Das Boot" with the camaraderie on the sub.

The acting, especially from Ken Duken as Hartenstein, was subtle and excellent.There were some brilliantly acted, moving scenes with Brian Cox, Andrew Buchan and Franka Potente. There are some slightly comic scenes that add a bit of life as it is to the drama.

Alan Bleasdale took his story from research in many survivors stories and created his view of the Sinking of the Laconia. It was much more true to the real histories than the majority of war- dramas I know(even " Das Boot" took liberties).

I don't care for the exact badges and stripes on the navy uniforms.Those are minor details(visible only for experts) that don't detract the average viewer from the story.

But careful: this review is for the UK-version of the film only . The German TV-version is different(edit,music, language)!!!

This movie is based on true events surrounding the attack in 1942 of the large merchant / war vessel Laconnia - carrying over 2,000 people - by a german submarine and the subsequent events thereafter. Those exact events caused this "incident" to gain worldwide attention during the Nuremberg trials, because of the USA trying to bury their own inhumane acts. I personally was astonished to see what exactly happened in the end.

This movie - which totals almost 3 hours and is split in 2 'episodes' - kept me 'entertained' for the total duration. It very well shows the two sides of war, where the distinction between enemy and friend can become very blurry.

Overall, I score this movie 7.6/10, which makes a very well deserved IMDb rating of 8 stars.

Just happen to watch this movie about 2 months ago. I really enjoyed it, I didn't think for one second it was anti American. In the movie the scene people are referring to they were given direct orders to bomb, they reported what they saw. But in general I thought it was a great TV movie. People take stuff so serious. Just relax and take in the show. I'm starting to really enjoy international movies, to me just more depth. It's nice to see at war time what went on behind the scenes in other countries. Germany could have easily said screw those people but they showed compassion. Just think the world was at War, they stopped what they were doing and helped the enemy.

In my opinion as a combat vet, this was a brilliant insight into the contradictions of war. There is brutality; there is compassion; there are heroes and there are cowards. Every war reveals humanity's best and even more its worst.

As for the movie, it was a powerful, well acted, portrayal of a real event of World War II. As much as I hate Hitler's Nazis, there were still men and women who managed to remain human. The faults of the English, who used a ship to transport both the privileged (esp. The women and children) and the Italian POWS, was not only reckless but inhumane.

I thank the British and German filmmakers, actors and production crews would told this story with award-winning skill and talent.