USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016)

I don't really expect much from Nick Cage these days. I suppose he did OK trying to pull this disaster of a disaster movie through, one which I watched with a sense of hope that it'd be a reasonable nod of respect to those who lost their lives.

The first 30 minutes were reasonable fare. Factually accurate and relatively tense. Unfortunately, when the torpedoes hit the Indianapolis, they appear to sink the entire film. From the absurd idea of a great white perpetrating not one, but a series of ever more daring attacks on the stranded, to the horrendous "CGI" and cut shots, which are seriously out of light sync and setting. The "rogue great white" nonsense has been to done to death. The Shallows, The Reef etc., whilst not exactly exceptional either, do it better. The shark fin sailing past was laugh-out-loud funny, like the fake fin the kids use to scare swimmers in Jaws.

The acting was, at best, ropy. The factual inaccuracies were offensive. The shark attack scenes were ridiculous. At least I watched it through, but that's two hours of my life written off as experience.

Fmovies: Set in mid-1945 during World War II, the USS Indianapolis, led by Captain Charles McVay (Nicolas Cage), was secretly tasked to deliver parts of an atomic bomb (which would later be dropped on Hiroshima) unescorted to a naval base in the Pacific. Back in open sea after successfully delivering their cargo, the ship was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea. The sailors spent five gruelling days with minimal supplies floating on life rafts in shark-infested waters. Only 317 of the original 1,196 crew members survive the ordeal.

The first hour of the film was quite brisk and eventful. The main storyline was laid out within the first scene. The backstory about some of the young sailors were introduced, oddly not too much on McVay himself. The USS Indianapolis embarked on its mission, torpedoed and sunk all within that first hour. However, this meant that the entire second hour would only be dealing about the survival ordeal of the sailors among the sharks awaiting rescue. It got maudlin and repetitive after the first few shark attacks. This was definitely not the war action film people were expecting to see.

The actors all seem to have come from the Nicolas Cage school of hammy acting. The major side story was about two friends who were in love with the same girl back home. Another side story was about a couple of sailors, one white, one black, constantly at odds with each other. There was also another side story about an arrogant young officer and his despicable attitude. All these rehashed side stories just served to fill out the rest of the running time before and after the sinking. The best actor for me would have to be Yutaka Takeuchi, the Japanese actor playing court-martial witness Commander Hashimoto, who displayed dignified subtly in his brief role.

For its Philippine release, this film's subtitle "Men of Courage" was replaced with "Disaster at (sic) Philippine Sea." However, for Filipino moviegoers expecting to actually see some part of the Philippines or see Filipinos in action in this film, they will be disappointed. The Philippines was mentioned but was never actually shown except for scene labels to establish the location. There was an extra card interrupting the closing credits stating how the search for the wreck of the Indianapolis was undertaken in 2001 in cooperation with the Philippine government and National Geographic. That was all about the Philippines here, nothing more. 5/10.

Well, I don't think this movie was quite as bad as some reviewers are making it. I do agree that the direction left something to be desired. Some of the early part of the film was a little sloppy. There were short scenes that seemed to come out of nowhere, and didn't seem to have anything to do with the flow of what we were seeing. As a former military man, I was astonished to see a scene where Nicolas Cage wore a mis-matched khaki naval uniform. Never happen, folks. However, I thought the movie got a little better as it went along. I was very disappointed that race had to be inserted into this. There didn't seem to be any reason why race had to play ANY part in this story. I don't know why so many directors (& producers and writers) seem to feel the need to do this (well, I have my suspicions, but that's a story for another day). The scene of the cook spitting on an officers piece of pie was despicable, and I wondered why that was even included in this. It served absolutely no real purpose. This was, supposedly, a crack naval ship and crew, entrusted with a top secret mission, and a sailor is spitting on an officer's food? But the survival scenes were done fairly well, and it was clear the incredible suffering & tragedy these men were exposed to. I thought the movie started rather poorly, but improved as it went along. I think, perhaps, Van Peebles is lacking in experience, and bit off a bit more than he could chew, but, all in all, I thought it was a decent enough movie. Cage played a fairly stoic, controlled character, but I think that was a good choice on his part. The story was what needed attention, not some overblown character. He seemed to hit the right note as a Naval Ship Captain. The actors all did adequate jobs, and it wasn't exactly a terrible movie.

USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage fmovies. The USS Indianapolis was one of the Navy's older Cruisers and served with much distinction. My Ens. David A Jump was a crew member on the ill fated Indy. The movie story is pretty much the way we were told as to what happened to the ship and the crew. My uncle died aboard the ship with the 1st torpedo attach. The story about what happened to Cpt. McVay is very real. The Navy didn't let the families know what really happened so many people hated Cpt. McVay and blamed him for the loss. The movie has historical value. It is well documented that the Japanese Commander did testify at the trial and he and McVay did meet each other. The loss of the Indy crew should never have happened. The Navy should have had better contact with the ship and when it didn't arrive at the next stop, the SOS should have been looked at much closer. It was known that the Japanese sub was in the path of the USS Indianapolis.

An actual true story I was expecting an amazing film but wow was this hard to watch! The start is like something from a cartoon not a big budget film from 2016! some of the scenes looked like props from a school play. terrible acting from all. Look at the scenes from top-gun on the ship real very tense this was more like a local theater show. Completely ruined this story just awful. Id racked my brain to find some part of it that was at least watchable but its really bad the start is just unbearable. Cage is not 1 of my favs but this was a terrible part as its meant to be a tense film but doesn't come close it was actually embarrassing to watch the acting honest I've seen better effects and acting from Sinbad the sailor. I pray that its just me and every one else enjoyed it but not me I'm afraid

Men of Courage is not meant to be anything more than a generic mid- budget war movie with sharks, but it underdelivers even if you keep your expectations low. The script follows historical events pretty closely, but writing has lots of flaws, and romantic storyline is disappointing. Nicolas Cage gives a sensible performance, but his character doesn't move anywhere from "good captain" cliché. The writers add lots of voice-over narration to add depth to characters, which makes things worse. The Japanese captain is reduced to ridicule near the ending, where the two captains burst into tears while saluting each other.

If you only look for special effects, war scenes and sharks wreaking havoc, this movie won't be any less disappointing. Warship effects are of acceptable quality (for television at least), but man-eating sharks are either roughly made CGI, or replaced with smaller sharks which are obviously harmless. Not a single scene shows sharks biting humans; edits carefully avoid that part. No attention is given to the actual details of shark species present on the site of USS Indianapolis demise. For a movie that closely follows actual events (and even includes documentary footage), Men of Courage has an unacceptable number of inaccuracies. It's also badly edited, with scenes interrupted and tied together in strange places. Two hours last like four.

The story of USS Indianapolis appears more fascinating when you read the sources and memoirs, and it certainly deserves a better adaptation than one made by this movie's screenwriters.