In Enemy Hands

His bad acting and dbag personality just tanked this movie for me

Every movie doesn't have to be academy award material. In fact many if not most movies try to be entertaining with interesting ideas. This is one of those movies. A WWII submarine backdrop that forces an alliances between two fighting sides for mutual survival. Ya, sub experts can pick apart some of the tech and tactics but that's not the point of the movie. It's like going to a stage play and picking apart the stage props as not being realistic. It's not the stage but the story that is interesting in this movie. As the world faces global warming, expensive energy, nuclear issues we all can take a lessen that working together to solve our problems would be far more productive than trying to kill each other (the under lying story of this movie).

I just rented this film (on DVD) because I liked the cast. In the case of William H Macy, I just trust his choice in scripts. Whatever he chooses to play, should I choose to watch. We seem to have the same taste somehow. So I hoped it would work again with this film.

I'm not interested in submarines, I'm not eager to watch films set in any war, I'm not even particularly fond of Til Schweiger, our German heartthrob, although Thomas Kretschmann is definitely an interesting actor. One to watch, believe me. But still this film fascinated me. So trusting Macy's choice worked once again.

The story had a couple of twists which I always like, dialogue in two languages (one third German, two thirds English) which is even better, and quite well developed (main) characters. All this makes a good film, not brilliant, but good. Good craftsmanship. I liked the German actors's "natural" accents, thankfully they were not forced to have worse accents than they normally have. And I liked in particular that at least in the leading roles it were Germans the filmmakers hired and not some Swedes, Americans or Britons replacing them like in other films like Ronin (Swede= Stellan Skarsgard) or Die Hard (Briton= Alan Rickman).

So, I think I can recommend this film, even to people outside the probable target group of young men. This film is not so much about war and fighting, but about the possibility of enemies working together and even becoming friends if you get the chance to get to know each other better and realizing, we are all humans after all.

8 out of 10.

This movie is a watchable one. It's not really a memorable one though but when you decide to watch it, it won't bore you.

When the movie began I was kind of worried. The editing was poor and the acting horrible B-movie like and it had a made-for-TV kind of look. But thankfully all those things improved later as the movie progressed.

It's obvious that the budget wasn't very big since they had to use stock footage from movies like "U-571" and even "Down Periscope". They also used stock footage from real WW II Destroyers and other boats which was pretty obvious at times, it was kind of amateur-like and unrealistic the way it was edited into the movie.

The story is pretty solid, despite some awfully weak dialog at times. It was at first kind of weird that the movie focused on both the Americans and Germans in the same way but later in the movie it becomes obvious why. The movie mostly fails to become tense but still its perfect good entertainment to watch all.

Not a must see by any means but when you decide to see it nevertheless, you will be fairly entertained. And hey it has got William H. Macy and Thomas Kretschmann and some other well known actors in small roles in it, which makes this movie absolutely, very well watchable.

7/10

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The film is based on historic deeds,thus the construction of new U-boats continued at a record -breaking during WWII. In 1942-43 Hitler raised enormously his U-boat strength,the German submarines sank numerous ships,in early 1943 the called ¨Wolf packs¨sank 90 ships in 20 days.Then,suddenly ,between March and June 1943,an exceptional change took place .The Allies began to win the war against Hitler's underwater in the Battle of the Atlantic.By this time the technique of submarines warfare had advanced far beyond that used in the beginning the war.The Allies pitted thousands of boats,seamen,destroyers,cruisers,subs,cannons and billion of dollars against the undersea craft .As early as December 1943 Karl Doeniz ,the architect and designer of U-boat campaign,admitted the grave turn in events.The cost was great on both sides .In the six years of war ,the Germans,by their own statistics,destroyed more than 2000 British,Allied ships in the sea.Hitler had built 1162 subs ,of which 783 were lost.Of the 41000 men recruited into the underwater service ,between 28000 and 32000 lost their lives and 500 were taken prisoners.

The picture narrates as the USS Swordfish underwater commanded by Cmdr Randall(Scott Caan) and the sergeant(William H. Macy)and with the crew(Jeremy Sisto,Sam Huntington among others)is sunk ,then they are captured by a Nazi U-Boat 424 commanded by a captain(Til Schweiger) and officer(Thomas Kretschman). The Americans led by the sergeant try to take over the German sub and to make their way back home confronting against Nazis sailors ,through enemies destroyers they manage to arrive at three hundred miles US coast.The movie contains nail-biting action,drama,suspense in a claustrophobic atmosphere although complemented with some of archive stock footage.

The film provides a realistic detailing of life aboard and a portrait about the crews subjected to stressful and psychological tensions.In fact the sailors had sleep in shifts.For months they were lodged in close quarters because every inch the space was needed for machinery,supplies and torpedoes.The air was heavy with odors from bilges,diesel oil and unwashed bodies.The men faced sudden death from depth charges ,aerial bombing attacks or the sharp bow of a swift destroyer as happen in this film.