An American light destroyer, code-named Greyhound, is pursuing a German U-boat. The sailor running the sonar passes co-ordinates to a sailor in the control room, who sneezes before passing them onto the commander.
An officer asks if he is thinks he will sneeze again, because if so he will be relieved from duty. This is the world we inhabit for the next 90 minutes: one where the two-second delay caused by a sneeze could cause death and destruction.
Greyhound is based on a 1955 novel by CS Forester, The Good Shepherd. Hanks worked on the script, on and off, for a decade. I think he should have stuck with the original title, partly to avoid people thinking this is a movie about racing dogs, but more so because it goes to the paradox at the heart of the story.
When we first met Commander Ernest Krause (Hanks), he is on his knees, praying. He is a religious man. On ship, he says grace over every meal, every cup of coffee. This command of a warship, three months after Pearl Harbour, is his first. He leaves behind the woman (Elizabeth Shue) he wants to marry.
There is a sad, beautiful moment when a German U-boat is destroyed. The look on Krause’s face says it all, and is testament to Hanks’s grit as a dramatic actor. “Fifty less Krauts!” a sailor shouts in joy. Krause nods and says quietly, “Fifty less souls.” I’d correct their grammar if they weren’t standing behind cannons.
I would add this role to Hanks’s best. I prefer his serious films to his comedies. He’s also, at 64, grown into his face. He’s no longer the youthful grinner of Splash (1984) or Big (1988) but a grey-bearded thinker. My top picks are Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Green Mile (1999), Road to Perdition (2002), Captain Phillips (2103), also set at sea, and Sully (2016).
The set-up of the new movie is simple and effective. Greyhound is one of four light battleships escorting 37 Allied ships, carrying troops and provisions, from the US to Liverpool. The two British destroyers are code-named Harry and Eagle, and the Canadian corvette is code-named Dickie, which I confess made me laugh at times. “Flip around and help Dickie,’’ is one order issued.
Greyhound is the lead ship and Krause is the overall commander.
Aside from his executive officer (the excellent Stephen Graham), the men of his ship are boys. Such is the horror of war. Their bravery is something that must never be forgotten.
The enemy is mainly invisible to the naked eye: German U-boats. Six of them, a self-described wolf pack, are on the prowl. They taunt their prey with radio messages: “Grey wolf is so very hungry.”
The Allied ships have air cover for a while, but once in the mid-North Atlantic, the “black pit”, they are on their own for three days.
These three days are the movie and it is gripping. The battle scenes are shot almost in black and white (cinematographer Shelly Johnson). The sea is dark, the sky is grey.
Inside Greyhound, it’s tight, tense and claustrophobic. No mistakes can be made. Depth charges must not be wasted. We also learn a little about the importance of tools that normally we don’t think of as weapons of war: compasses, protractors, rules, crayons.
This is Schneider’s second feature, following the hidden gem Get Low (2009), in which Robert Duvall is a hermit who hosts his own funeral party. It also stars Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek and cost under $10m, so Schneider seems to have the respect of some serious names. His short, Two Soldiers, also set during World War II and based on a short story by William Faulkner, won an Oscar in 2004.
Watching Greyhound made me think, of course, of Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot (The Boat) from 1981. In its 149-minute theatrical release that film was similar to Greyhound. Petersen went on to release a 209-minute director’s cut in 1997 that delved more deeply into the lives of the men at war. The BBC then made an even longer mini-series. That psychological side to the story is the one thing Greyhound could do with more of.
Rating: ★★★½
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