Mark Reviews Movies: GREYHOUND

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 9, 2020

Tom Hanks' screenplay for Greyhound doesn't waste much time before establishing what the story is and how the film will go about telling that tale. It's one of the high seas during World War II—the Battle of the Atlantic, in which merchant vessels, transporting soldiers and supplies from the United States to Europe, were forced to contend with the silent and hidden threat of German U-boats. Escort ships, armed for attacks on and beneath the surface of the water, had one job: to protect that precious cargo.

That's the foundation story. The actual process of the telling, admirably, is all about logistics and strategy.

Hanks and director Aaron Schneider, adapting C.S. Forester's novel The Good Shepherd, have set out to replicate the experience of one of those escort vessels over the course of a few days in 1942. Some introductory text explains the basics: these ships were vital to the war effort but vulnerable in a long stretch of the ocean known as the "Black Pit," out of range of air support. We're then introduced to our hero, the captain of a U.S. Navy destroyer with the eponymous nickname, as he awakens, prays, and prepares for command—a shift that will last much longer than he could anticipate.

The captain is Ernest Krause, played by Hanks with a level of quiet dignity and a sense of the overwhelming responsibility of his job. He's a religious man, and after the ship's first encounter with a German submarine, Krause looks on at the pool of oil and collection of debris with a look of unmistakable remorse. His men celebrate the loss of the U-boat and, with it, some 50 German sailors. "Fifty souls," Krause remarks. This is a man who knows his work is necessary, in order to protect hundreds and thousands of other lives, but it doesn't make the weight of guilt any easier to bear.

This character is a strong one as he is—in his element (although a line late in the film makes us realize his abilities haven't come from experience), weighing and calculating priorities, determining strategy on the fly, and forcing himself to stay awake as the days and night progress, lest any of his men have to place themselves in such a difficult position. Hanks, obviously, excels in this kind of role—an intelligent, decent, and wholly ordinary man, whose smarts and moral convictions are repeatedly put to the test.

There's a small hitch to the screenplay, though, which, while minimal, stands out from the rest of the film's resolve to keep its story in the moment and define its protagonist through decision-making and action. Krause may first be introduced in his morning routine, but the character's first real challenge arrives in a brief flashback, set in the lobby of a San Francisco hotel. He has been courting a woman, played by Elisabeth Shue (in an absolutely thankless role), and asks her to marry him. The only minor surprise of the scene is that she refuses, pointing out that there is too much uncertainty in the world for something so certain.

The scene, although short and almost entirely irrelevant to the rest of the story (A couple shots of Shue's character remind us that she exists), sets a false starting note. Perhaps this subplot was lost in the editing (The film runs just over 80 minutes without the end credits), but its fleeting existence in the film feels a bit like pandering, as if we won't be able to connect to our hero unless we know he has some kind of personal life waiting for him back home.

Thankfully, the rest of Hanks' screenplay is all business. The minimal plot has Krause's destroyer, leading the escort mission of a massive convey traveling across the North Atlantic, searching for and playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with assorted enemy submarines. As the convey gets closer to its destination of Liverpool, a "wolf pack" of U-boats surrounds the ships, leaving Krause to decide which vessels, which lives, and which strategy are most important in each and every moment.

There's a process to all of this, communicated quite thoroughly, convincingly, and comprehensibly by both Schneider's filmmaking and Hanks' writing. Important elements, such as the ship's use of sonar (both the active "pinging" and the passive listening types) and naval battle strategy, are explained, not with characters asking suspiciously probing questions or providing useful information indirectly to the audience, but through action.

Hanks' characters spend a lot of time shouting and repeating orders, but Schneider ensures that we can follow the course of logic and consequences to these in-the-moment decisions. The director's camera freely moves within the confines of the ship (Some of this was filmed onboard an authentic destroyer of the era, now a museum piece) and from various angles surrounding it (The visual effects are more than competent, really giving us a sense of the scale of the operation and the vastness of the ocean). The editing, done by the team of Mark Czyzewski and Sidney Wolinsky, is as much about providing clarity of position—within the ship and amidst the waters—as it is about maintaining momentum.

The resulting film is tense and exciting, not only in terms of spectacle, but also because it allows us to follow along with the unique challenge of the destroyer's task and every decision that Krause has to make. We get a real sense of the mission and, despite the misguided prologue, the man at the heart of Greyhound.

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