Greyhound starring Tom Hanks is available on July 10, 2020, on Apple TV+.
Greyhound is the fictional story of one convoy from the perspective of a U.S. destroyer skipper, Commander Ernest Krause (Tom Hanks).
Produced and written by Hanks for theatrical release, Greyhound is streaming instead on Apple TV+. The computer-generated Atlantic crossing, with ships heaving in enormous waves rising from the turbulent ocean, might have been more impressive on big screens. Nevertheless, laptops and video monitors are just right for the psychological action of a navy ship in wartime. Krause’s destroyer is a steel can bobbing on the ocean, a confined space where peak performance is essential. Orders issued in a snap are repeated rapidly and executed immediately. “Right full rudder!” “Right full rudder!” “Right full rudder!” goes the literal chain of command as the destroyer turns sharply to avoid an oncoming torpedo.
Quietly religious, Krause is a man of conscience aware of the paradox: he is responsible for saving as well as taking lives. When his officers hurrah over the death of “50 Krauts” after they sank their first U-boat, he says, instead, “50 souls.” Although many wartime commanders refused to rescue survivors of sinking convoy ships struck by Nazi torpedoes, he stops to save a handful of sailors otherwise doomed to sharks and the cold North Atlantic.
Greyhound is a gripping action adventure that never lets go. Krause’s convoy is under almost unrelenting attack from a U-boat wolf pack moving like malevolent shadows below the ocean’s surface. A few moments seem unrealistic. Would a U-boat commander be foolish enough to surface in daylight in full view of Allied warships and engage them with his deck guns? Mostly, Greyhound sticks to realism, capturing the split-second decisions and timing of Krause and his crew, under fire and in continual danger from enemies seldom seen and only sometimes heard through hydrophones and sonar.
Hanks invests Krause with harried resilience, his increasingly haggard face momentarily dissolving into fear. He knows that mistakes are fatal. Krause is multitasking at a furious pace and the distraction occasionally causes him to forget the names of crew members.
Unlike Hank’s most famous role as a commanding officer, in Saving Private Ryan, Greyhound’s taut screenplay affords him no space for sentimentality. Memories of life at home are only brief flashes in Krause’s mind, not fireside chats among the men. Hank’s persona as a highly competent and compassionate leader shines in Greyhound.
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