Greyhound Parent Guide

It’s World War II and the Nazis are determined to bomb and starve the British into submission. By 1942, Axis aggression threatens to choke Britain and the convoys from North America have become increasingly vital to national survival. But the crossing is fraught with peril – Nazi submarines patrol an area in the middle of the sea known as “The Black Pit”, an area where Allied air support is unable to reach, and where the U-boats have free reign. Here, days from aid, Captain Krause (Tom Hanks) leads a large international convoy beset by a pack of German submarines. Their ferocity will push Krause, the men he commands, and their ships to the absolute limit of their strength…but will that be enough to see them through to the safety of England?

Based on this plot and the involvement of Tom Hanks, I was more or less expecting Greyhound to be Captain Phillips meets Saving Private Ryan. But those films have a notable distinction: they have character development. Greyhound is certainly tense and interesting, but the characters have so little dialogue and so little time to show any personality that, for the most part, they stick in my mind as little more interchangeable sailors on the bridge. Now, if the film was trying to make some point about the dehumanizing nature of war, or the stress it causes which makes men withdrawn, that might have been interesting. But if that’s what director Aaron Schneider was doing, it didn’t get on my radar at all.

Tom Hanks is acting his guts out, and his portrayal of the deeply religious, hardworking, and determined Captain is easily the high point of the film. But there’s only so much he can do against the script, which doesn’t give him much to work with. And it’s not only the script that’s lacking: the special effects (which compose a large portion of the film) range from passable to noticeably rubbery. Worse, there was one hugely noticeable edit mid-take: two takes of the same scene poorly stitched together, causing an obvious jitter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a big studio release before.

Technical quibbles aside, there is little for parents to be concerned with. The violence is mostly distant and impersonal, and Captain Krause’s strong religious beliefs keep the crew from cussing as sailors are wont to do. I’ll put it this way: I’d be comfortable watching this with my churchgoing grandmother. There’s very little to be worried about here. Unfortunately, there’s also not too much to bite into. Greyhound feels more like the insert shots in a documentary about the Atlantic crossing, but without the informative and interesting narration and framework. Unobjectionable does not guarantee interesting – and this film finds itself in the Black Pit in between the two.