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Created Dec 27, 2020 09:26PM PST • Edited Feb 24, 2021 02:02AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Greyhound delivers naval battle action that will likely never be topped. USN Captain Tom Hanks orders his men to General Quarters more often than you’ll go to the fridge for refills. Torpedoes get fired and outmaneuvered, depth charges deployed and cannons barraged at levels rarely seen and never exceeded.

   Indeed, Greyhound races to the pole position amongst the Great War movies, naval division, Battle of the Atlantic specifically. Das Boot tops it, but then Das Boot tops pretty much every war movie, ever.

   Tom Hanks has gifted us another essential World War II movie as he essays another American war hero, further burnishing his status as Jimmy Stewart’s 21st century heir. He also wrote the screenplay, adapting from the estimable C. S. Forrester’s characteristically classic novel The Good Shepherd. Unfortunately, Hanks the screenwriter is kinda ham-handed. Good thing he’s got Tom Hanks delivering his lines.

   This Apple TV+ only film is also a feather in the cap for Tim Cook and the team at Apple, a patriotic contribution along with everything else. Like a real life game of Battleship, it presents sea battle action extraordinaire. Plus, it gets right to it and stays there, with General Quarters again and again and again.

   Now that’s entertainment!

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Tom Hanks radiates quiet decency and consummate competence as a middle-aged man thrust into command of an extreme naval battle. While Saving Private Ryan is a more important movie, his performance as a Navy Captain in Greyhound tops his role as an Army Captain two decades ago.

   SUPPORTERS

   • Stephen Graham jumps offscreen as the Greyhound’s XO.
   • Rob Morgan also jumps offscreen as an exceedingly decent and capable Mess Attendant.
   • Elisabeth Shue underwhelms in a single scene as the woman Hanks loves.
   • Karl Glusman makes a strong impression as a savvy radar operator.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    The Naval Battle of the Year Award goes to Greyhound and Aaron Schneider, its director. His film does spectacular justice to E.F. Forrester’s spectacularly procedural story, which captures 72 hours in the Black Pit of the mid-Atlantic, where the American destroyer Greyhound battles the German U-boat Grey Wolf.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Great 4.0

    Tom Hanks adapted the screenplay from C. S. Forrester’s novel The Good Shepherd. While Hanks’ screenplay is rather clunky, especially in the sole non-combat scene, Forrester’s characteristic depth of feel for the ways and methods of onboard activity shines through. This is not surprising, as Forrester’s oeuvre includes the Horatio Hornblower novels, which celebrated an earlier era in naval warfare.

13. Music Really Great 4.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

    Suitable, even recommended, for family viewing, little kids excepted.

17. Sex Innocent 1.3

18. Violence Brutal 3.0

19. Rudeness Salty 1.6

21. Reality

    Glib 1.4

    Admirably real while depicting the most surreal occurrences, Greyhound depicts real occurrences through imagined characters of the Greatest Generation. This was the reality, albeit not the men involved.

    Greyhound shines a light on how naval communications get handled on-ship during war, stated and then repeated, like a game of telephone that never goes wrong.

    On a related note, Greyhound shows real men in the most serious of situations. Masculinity was essential.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.8

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Glib 1.3