USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Mario Van Peebles
	Actors: Nicolas Cage (Knowing, Face/Off), Tom Sizemore (Red Planet, Black Hawk Down), Thomas Jane (The Expanse TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: War, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 12.11.2017, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: The story of the ship that was sunk by a Japanese submarine after delivering parts of the A-bombs that will be launched on Japan in 1945.
Review: This story is known of the fans of Genre movies like me thanks to a monologue delivered by Robert Shaw in Steven Spielberg cult Horror Thriller Jaws in 1975. In that movie the boat captain Quint tells how he survived the USS Indianapolis tragedy, spending several says in shark-infested waters. I do not know whether the fame of Jaws finally helped in producing that movie (it has been in the planning since the 80's) or rather the recent attempts at finding its remains (which were finally found in summer 2017), but I was half expecting a brief apparition by a character named Quint in there, half-disappointed that there was none. So the story is plainly told, from a brief introduction to the secret mission, its success, the attack, the survival, the shark attacks, and when you think it is over, half an hour of epilogue about the post-war life of the crew and the trial of their captain. Unfortunately it is told in a flat manner, without heart. The actors are OK including Nicolas Cage, the sets good-looking, and enough happens that you don't get bored in the two hours of the movie, but on the other hand emotions are flattened, not supported by the music (particularly not the shark attacks), and worst of all the special effects are really really cheap: ships, torpedoes, underwater shots... all look like a Playstation 1 video game. Is the director Mario Van Peebles to blame, him usually an actor, or the limited budget partly spent on the salary of a couple of known faces? If the emotion behind the story of this critical event in the Second WW was well told, I could overlook the special effects, but unfortunately the whole thing is not memorable.
Rating: 3 /10