Not my favorite, but still pretty good

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2007)

Just in case you don't know already what this movie is all about, here's a brief synopsis: During the Second World War, a German submarine sinks an ocean liner en route to England. Eight survivors from the ship scramble their way onto a lifeboat. Later, one more passenger climbs aboard, and it turns out he is a German officer from the sunken submarine.
The rest of the movie is really just a character drama. We see some pretty average and ordinary people trying to survive long enough on this boat under increasingly difficult circumstances. I personally think this is a pretty realistic movie about how some people would likely react in the same situation. The acting is quite good, and the character development could not have been done any better. I think anyone desiring to write a screenplay should have to watch this film as an example of how to develop realistic and deep characters. In fact, I think most of today's movie directors could improve after watching this movie.
It is a very effective film, and it has not been padded with any extra non-essential fluff. In fact, it seems every scene builds on the previous one as the movie gradually builds to its conclusion. Again, the focus is not on the events of the film, but on the characters, and specifically, how each character reacts to what happens.
Having said that, this isn't one of my favorites, nor is it one that I would be in a hurry to watch any time soon. But that's only because it is not the most enjoyable movie I have ever seen. On the other hand, it is the kind of film you just keep watching to see what will happen next. Once you start, you're pretty much hooked.
Be warned, though, the movie is a bit slow because the focus is on the characters and not on the events. If you prefer constant action, you should skip this one, because you will probably fall asleep after the first 5 minutes.
One last thing, and this is where the potential spoiler may be hidden. Stop reading now if you want to be surprised.
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Actually, it's more like a goof than a spoiler, but it's an essential plot point, so I'm going to hide it from people who don't want to know anything else about this movie other than the brief intro.
In one scene, the character who is supposed to be the boat's navigator finds out that they have been heading in the wrong direction because of the position of the planets Mars and Venus. That probably sounded like a reasonable explanation to people like Alfred Hitchcock and John Steinbeck, or to anyone who is not familiar with astronomy. But the problem is that every ship navigator's understanding of astronomy would prevent them from ever plotting a course based on the positions of the planets. They would only plot their course based on the stars, and specifically, the North Star.
The planets change positions in the sky much too quickly. From one night to the next, the same planet will be in a different position in the sky even at the exact same time of night. The North Star, on the other hand, is almost perfectly aligned with the North Pole. That means its position in the night sky almost never changes. The other stars in the sky seem to move in a circular motion around the North Pole, due to the rotation of the Earth. The planets, on the other hand, do not move this way, and therefore, plotting a course at sea based on the planets is bound to lead to some pretty unexpected results.
Even ancient mariners knew this, and in fact, the word "planet" comes from an ancient Greek word which means "wandering star." The Greeks and other civilizations knew the planets moved differently in the sky, and that's why they charted their courses based on the stars instead.
Any navigator in the 1940s would also know this, so it's unlikely that the ship's navigator would have told this character that they were heading toward Venus, or Mars, or any other planet.
Again, this is more like a goof than a spoiler, but as soon as I took notice of it, I had to dock the film at least a point or two. Most of the film is very realistic, but on this one point, someone messed up somewhere. No, it doesn't ruin the film, but in my opinion, it's enough to drop a potentially 9 or 10 vote down to an 8. No navigator would have made this mistake.
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