World War Two movie? Ghost story? Or something BETTER?
Below
Rating: ****
DVD
Directed by David Twohy
Written by Lucas Sussman, Darren Aronofsky
Cast
Chuck Ellsworth
Crispin Layfield
Holt McCallany
Bruce Greenwood
Matt Davis
Jonathan Hartman
Dexter Fletcher
Olivia Williams
Scott Foley
Nick Chinlund
R
98 Min
www.belowthemovie.com
They called it The Greatest Generation.
The
motley collection of men from all branches of society--farm boys from
Dubuque mingling in with street kids and petty criminals from the Five
Boroughs--that brought liberty to a world on the brink of tyranny.
Agree
or disagree with the war itself, we know that the boys Over There faced
horrors unlike anything most have ever known. And when Hollywood
intermingles in the history, the horrors can be amplified beyond the
pale.
Below is one example of this augmentation.
Below,
from Dimension Films, is the story of the USS Tiger Shark, a submarine
patrolling the Pacific Ocean in 1943, probably not too long after Pearl
Harbor. They receive orders to rescue some survivors of an attacked
hospital ship in the midst of the Pacific. While effecting the rescue,
the Tiger Shark is intercepted by a warship.
All is not well for
the Tiger Shark...from the moment they rescue the survivors, the
remainder of their cruise takes on a sinister turn as Murphy enforces
his Law: everything that can go wrong does. From record players playing
at inopportune times seemingly of their own volition, to ghostly
warnings sounding in the middle of the night, corpses speaking in
voices that don't match the voice they died with, the Tiger Shark looks
more and more like a jinxed cruise.
The Tiger Shark's journey
grows increasingly more frightening as the ghosts of the Tiger Shark's
checkered past come back to haunt its current crew. Crewmen die by the
life boat-full, and we discover steadily more about what had been going
on on board the Tiger Shark.
[BB]
The ending is also surprising
-- an excellent wrap-up of the events and a thrilling conclusion with a
battle on the narrow deck of a submarine above water in heavy storms.
Look also for a surprise twist in the last thirty seconds that should
really impress.
I was impressed. By the ending, and by the film at large.
Below
is packed with impressive visuals and a quality plotline. While I'm
generally impressed with World War II films on general principles, and
I haven't found a bad one yet, Below manages to kick it up a notch by
introducing some horrific elements and really adding something to the
genre. There are some truly excellent effects in Below -- both visual
and audio -- that really augment the unsettling environment. And, of
course, the environment is unsettling enough as it is. A submarine is
one of the potentially most frightening settings there is. It's
enclosed, it's cramped...
...and escape is impossible without a series of careful, thoroughly necessary maneuvers taking hours to accomplish safely.
There's
really nothing bad to say about Below -- perhaps in some spots it moves
a little more slowly than one would like, but that's to be expected of
ANY movie. But the run time, 98 minutes, is just about right for a
movie like this.
Below is a textbook example of director Twohy's
skill with cinematography and his distinctive film style, easily the
highest point of his earlier work Pitch Black, not to mention
Aronofsky's flair for dramatic scripting as seen in previous works like
Pi.
Extra features on the DVD are also well represented, with
trailers for Halloween: Resurrection, Dracula: Ascension, Tangled, and
Undisputed. Other features include a theatrical trailer, deleted
scenes, a featurette on the making of the film, a feature commentary,
subtitles in English only and assorted audio options.
All in
all, Below is a satisfying experience for those fond of war movies, and
even horror mavens should find something to appreciate here. Below is a
careful and pleasing blend of genres -- part war movie, part mystery
thriller, part ghost story -- that will likely surprise its viewers
with its sheer quality.
Tags:
world Family Love america war time US government 
