I’ve always said that the story of the USS Indianapolis, which was immortalised in Quint’s brilliant monologue from Jaws, would make a great movie, and one’s been proposed a couple of times in the past. The ship, commanded by Captain Butler McVay, set out on a secret mission in July 1945 to transport the very atomic weapons that would end up destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though it made it through, it was sunk by Japanese torpedoes on its return voyage. Approximately 300 of the 1196 crew went down with the ship and the remaining 880 faced dehydration, exposure and shark attacks while awaiting rescue. Only 321 were ultimately plucked from the water, and of those just 316 survived. McVay ended up court-martialled, but thanks to the research of Hunter Scott, who in 1996 was inspired by Steven Spielberg’s classic to write a report about the vessel and her ill-fated crew for a History Day competition, he was exonerated.
A great true life story then, and at last they have filmed it, though judging by this trailer it doesn’t very impressive, though to me, aside from it piling on the corn, the trailer seems curiously amatuerish, being poorly edited together [especially the music]. The combination of real shark footage and Syfy-quality CGI doesn’t bode well either. Plus star Nicolas Cage seems unable to be in a good movie these days. Still, I do have a fondness for shark movies, even the poorer ones, so I reckon I’ll still get some enjoyment from it.
USS Indianapolis: Men Of Courage is directed by Mario Van Peebles, written by Cam Cannon and Richard Rionda Del Castro, and stars Cage, Tom Sizemore and Thomas Jane. It doesn’t have a theatrical release date yet, and the word is that it’ll more likely go straight to home viewing formats.
https://youtu.be/TF5IspEU_Vg
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