The best thing about this flick is that it seems like they used a lot of stuff left over from the Pearl Harbor attack in Tora Tora Tora. My favorite was the shot of the P-40 crashing into the row of parked P-40s but filmed from the top of a hangar or crane. Unfortunately it just gets worse from there.
There's two black guys and two white guys as American POWs, as well as some Filipinos POWs and Japanese guards. The ranking POW of the Americans is a white naval Lieutenant, which is of course an O-3 in the navy. At any rate, he's in need of a haircut, badly, distractingly badly. Hockey hair does not belong in a WWII movie. Oh, and he's a racist. He doesn't want to share quarters with the 'negros'. Of course in real life, he wouldn't want to share quarters with the white enlisted guy either. I think the Geneva Convention has a clause about officers quarters and enlisted but that wasn't the point here. Oh well, I think plot is secondary to other issues in this flick. He gets put in his place and pretty much spends the rest of the movie as a look out and running the air pump for the divers.
But once you get going, it's not a bad story line. The japs want the divers to raise the silver thrown out by the Americans before Corrigador fell. The Filipino resistance wants them to take their time. And the POWs do their best to help. A potentially good story and not that badly done I guess. A bit unbelievable when the POWs use camp made re-breathers to swim between the POW camp and the Filipino village, every night. Maybe I'm not that picky when I know going in that this is not a blockbuster film. I guess that's why it comes on a 20-pack DVD war movie collection for five bucks.
The 70s music did not belong in this movie or any WWII movie. It's quite distracting to say the least. The acting was not that bad. Probably better than I could do.
Not being a fan of football, at least I found out that Jim Brown is a real person and not somebody Richard Pryor made up. That in itself was worth the 25¢ I paid for this movie.
Worth watching on TCM or paying a quarter for.
One star for being a war movie, another for being WWII and one more because I'm feeling generous.
There's two black guys and two white guys as American POWs, as well as some Filipinos POWs and Japanese guards. The ranking POW of the Americans is a white naval Lieutenant, which is of course an O-3 in the navy. At any rate, he's in need of a haircut, badly, distractingly badly. Hockey hair does not belong in a WWII movie. Oh, and he's a racist. He doesn't want to share quarters with the 'negros'. Of course in real life, he wouldn't want to share quarters with the white enlisted guy either. I think the Geneva Convention has a clause about officers quarters and enlisted but that wasn't the point here. Oh well, I think plot is secondary to other issues in this flick. He gets put in his place and pretty much spends the rest of the movie as a look out and running the air pump for the divers.
But once you get going, it's not a bad story line. The japs want the divers to raise the silver thrown out by the Americans before Corrigador fell. The Filipino resistance wants them to take their time. And the POWs do their best to help. A potentially good story and not that badly done I guess. A bit unbelievable when the POWs use camp made re-breathers to swim between the POW camp and the Filipino village, every night. Maybe I'm not that picky when I know going in that this is not a blockbuster film. I guess that's why it comes on a 20-pack DVD war movie collection for five bucks.
The 70s music did not belong in this movie or any WWII movie. It's quite distracting to say the least. The acting was not that bad. Probably better than I could do.
Not being a fan of football, at least I found out that Jim Brown is a real person and not somebody Richard Pryor made up. That in itself was worth the 25¢ I paid for this movie.
Worth watching on TCM or paying a quarter for.
One star for being a war movie, another for being WWII and one more because I'm feeling generous.