Animenter There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Prismark10 Alan Bleasdale's drama, The Sinking of the Laconia recounts a controversial maritime incident in the second world war. The event took place some 600 miles from the west coast of Africa in September 1942 some.According to one British survivor. The German U Boat Commander, Werner Hartenstein sank the Laconia killing over 2000 passengers but then realising that civilians were in the ship including women, children, Italian prisoners of war, he risked his U Boat and the lives of his crew to sit on the surface all the time and rescue the survivors. The U Boat was then attacked by a US bomber despite displaying a red cross flag.Bleasdale adds some stories to the main narrative. Mortimer (Andrew Buchan), the Laconia's honourable Third Officer dutifully carrying on with his life just moments after learning his wife and children have been killed in a bombing raid. Hilda (Franka Potente) is a widow who lost her baby in the sinking. She sounds English but she is part German, guilty that she did not protest against the rise of Nazism unlike other members of her family.This is a well shot drama but not entirely enthralling. Bleasdale's reputation is such that you expect top drawer writing from him. Ken Duken stands out as Hartenstein but it is not in the level of Das Boot as a claustrophobic drama.

Ed Pond Nobody talks like this. The characterisation is flat with no clear motivations. Why does the British officer feel so betrayed by the German woman? 'You lied to me' - he's known her for about one day, and she didn't want to give herself away, obviously... The plot plods from one quasi-intellectual soliloquy to another. The whole thing is pretentious playwright preaching which detracts from the sad true incident it is based on.

Robert J. Maxwell We don't hear much about the sinking of the British troop ship Laconia because the story ends neither with an Allied victory nor a glorious last stand. We can hear about the battles of Britain or Pearl Harbor or Midway but not the sinking of the Laconia, any more than we can stand to hear about the battles of the Java Sea, Savo Island, or Kasserine Pass. As human beings we prefer our movies to be cooked rather than raw.The facts in the case of the Laconia are clear. It sailed from Cairo for Liverpool, a passenger liner converted to troop ship, but this time carrying only civilians and more than a thousand Italian prisoners. A U-boat commanded by Ken Duken as Werner Hartenstein, not knowing what the ship carried, torpedoes and sinks it. Approaching the flotsam, Hartenstein and crew grasp the situation and pick up several hundred survivors, berthing some aboard the U-boat and towing the rest in a daisy chain of lifeboats. Hartenstein, to the bemusement of Admiral Doenitz in Paris, sends out a radio signal on a British frequency in plain English, explaining the circumstances and promising that any ship of any nationality that approaches to receive the prisoners will not be attacked.The British receive the message but decide not to reply. Instead they notify the US Air Force base on Asencion Island about the location of the missing Laconia without mentioning the U-boat which, by this time, is crowded with passengers on deck and below and sports large sheets displaying red crosses. A B-24 from Asencion Island sees nothing of the Laconia but does spot the U-boat. The American crew is young and untested. Nobody seems able to read the Morse code lights from the U-boat, but they do recognize it as an enemy submarine and drop five bombs on or near it, causing casualties.Hartenstein reluctantly puts his remaining passengers in lifeboats and tells them to stay in position and wait for the arrival of a Vichy French rescue ship. The rescue happens apace, after further deaths in the barren lifeboats. Hartenstein's boat is damaged but makes it back to port, where he is decorated. However, the incident prompts an order from high command that no more rescues will ever be attempted except for ship's officers or chief engineers. Hartenstein is lost on a later mission.The language problem is handled deftly. The Germans mostly speak German; the British speak only English. There are a couple of sub plots but none involve a developing romance, Gott sei Dank. It's a miniseries but it must have been an expensive one because the visual effects are unusually good and the performances are uniformly fine. If the direction by Uwe Janson has any flaws it's that he's decided to use too many choker close ups, but that's about it. He doesn't glamorize the actors. When they've been torpedoed and are bobbing in the sea they look like hell.The central figure is Duken's modest and human Hartenstein. Duken is very impressive and not just because he has a sympathetic role. He has a trim beard, he's young, reasonably good looking, and has a pair of piercing eyes which he deploys magnificently. When he fixes his gaze on someone, it seems as if he's looking inside him. But he's matter of fact about the circumstances and stern when necessary. Famke Potente has a marvelously expressive face and uses her expressions judiciously. Some films about enemy submarines must have an ideological zealot aboard. Not this one. That would be too easy. The crew member who wants to stick to the rules, who believes U-boats are there to sink and kill the enemy is the boat's chief engineer, Matthias Koeberlin, but he's not an evil figure. His arguments are not humane but are pragmatic. And he shows a happy aptitude for teaching the kids to speak a few words of German. It's a difficult role and he manages it well.The film is based on a true story although some characters are surely fictional, as much of the dialog must be. But, an excess bit of sentimentality aside, it's an excellent example of just how good a miniseries can be, and the story is worth telling -- and retelling.

misonafashion This documentary - drama was a great thing to show to the main public. The idea of being noble and humane in the midst of a war is quite unusual and it should have been stressed out more in order to make humans aware in such a way. This kind of situations are extraordinary, and they happen only occasionally, under special circumstances. I hope more movies would be made in such honorable manners to encourage people of this planet to be just like this or better. The media has this power, and I wish it was used more in this way! Thank you for making this movie, I'd rate it min. 7,5 if I was asked. And all this nationality preferences and it's discredits are just what the war is all about, I sincerely hope we soon become what we pretend to be. Big respect for the captain and I hope we aspire to such deeds!