NekoHomey
Purely Joyful Movie!
Tedfoldol
everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Bluebell Alcock
Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Suman Roberson
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
frankjosephmoulder
Where do I start. Hellcats was the name for naval aircraft the F6F Grumman not submarines.They were Gatos. The submarine goes from a normal sized tube for a Gato class sub to a tube large enough to hold a 10' ceiling. Ronald Reagan's acting was as stiff as it gets. The dialog between him and Nancy Davis was as contrived as it gets. The dialog in general sounded like it was a Mark 7 production. There was a scene where a Japanese sub was firing its deck gun while the muzzle of the deck gun was still moving. Miraculous gunners they were because that shot and every other hit target. There were enrichment shots in the film that looked more like U boats than Gatos. The important thing is this movie ruined Ronald Reagan's film career. From this movie came TV and a B movie or two(made for big and little screens) and finally life in the desert as narrator of "Death Valley Days".
pageiv
I'm sure the tactics used in this movie bar little on how things really went down, but the movie OK, or a solid "5".The story was decent and actually kept this thing moving along, action was good for a sub pick, acting was what you would expect from the cast. Only drawback was, like I said, the tactics and equipment used. PT boats as Japanese fast attack ships is one example. Like someone else mentioned, if Capt. Reagan was a commander of a sub in real life, he would've been fired or possible shot for the why he exposed his ship to the enemy. Which oddly enough was how the movie started when he saved his ship instead of one of his crew.I'm sure if Ron and Nancy weren't in it, it would've long ago been forgotten and rated a couple stars lower. But they are in it, and which makes it worth while to give it a view once, plus Fleet Admial Nimitz has a cameo!
williamodouglas
Leaden acting. Awful special effects. Every time the submarines go out, so does the sonar (amazing, huh?) A forced conflict between the captain and his executive officer. It also has some of the worst dialogue imaginable, especially in the Ronald Reagan-Nancy Davis scenes. All in all, I would have rather watched an old television test-pattern.
stryker-5
US Navy submarines bravely try to penetrate the heavily-mined entrance to the Sea of Japan, in order to sink enemy shipping which is carrying coal, food and iron from China to the Japanese homeland.On one level a simple war action movie, this film is also a commendable study in the morality of leadership. The central question posed by the movie is whether a commander's duty towards a single seaman in obvious danger outweighs his overall responsibility to his crew.Ronald Reagan is very good as the straight, correct Captain Casey Abbott. Back at Guam he has a girl, a nurse in the military hospital (Nancy Davis, to give her her professional name). When a frogman who is also a rival for the nurse's affections gets into difficulties, Captain Casey has to try to separate personal and professional motivations.Casey's Executive Officer, Dan Landon, clashes with his skipper but by a twist of fate finds himself having to make a very similar decision. Will he call the plays differently?The film works as an uncomplicated war story, but does contain a few infelicities. The submariners are depicted as nice guys in order to enlist viewer sympathy, but this is a little overdone and the sailors come across as childish simpletons, stealing cookies and hiding their dice. Wes Barton has to be portrayed as a popular guy so that we will resent his treatment at the Captain's hands, but to have sailors pleading for a Barton story as he is entering the airlock on a dangerous mission is just unbelievable. The crew of the USS Starfish get sealed orders for a special mission. They are to enter the Straits of Tsushima, land a party on a fortified island, and destroy its defences. Would an ordinary submarine crew really be entrusted with such a specialised task? The frogman sequences are shot in murky water and are hard to follow. Penetration of the minefield channel is effected in a few seconds, when such an undertaking would surely last many hours.For contemporary viewers, much of the film's interest will lie in the unique experience of watching Ron and Nancy onscreen together. They had been married for five years when "Hellcats" was made, and at the time of writing, 42 years later, they are still going strong. It is tempting, if unwarranted, to scrutinize their lines for significant snippets. Ronald Reagan's character is asked what he will do after the War and he announces, "I'm going into the surplus business." Given his leadership style, some would say that was an accurate prediction of both his gubernatorial performance in California and his presidency. Much of Ron's dialogue is an essay on the burden of leadership, and how only a special few are fitted to bear it. Nancy confides to him, "You know I was fresh out of a bad marriage when we met. I wanted to be sure this time. So we played it safe, until I knew you were Mr. Right." In fairness to the Reagans, that, at least, has proved to be autobiographical.
