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The story of the USS Indianapolis is one of the most harrowing in United States history. The Navy ship, a heavy cruiser, was tasked with a top-secret mission in the last days of World War II, delivering components for the A-bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima, helping to end that war. (It was simply impossible for a plane carrying that bomb to fly from the United States to Japan.) After making the delivery to Guam, the ship took off, once again under a cloak of secrecy. But it was sunk by a Japanese sub and about a quarter of its men went down with the ship. About 900 other sailors clung to life rafts with scant supplies awaiting a rescue that was probably never going to come, given the nature of their mission. During the four-day interval before their discovery, the men were beset by sharks. (The character of Quint in “ Jaws ,” played by Robert Shaw , tells its story therein.) 317 survived. Things weren’t subsequently very rosy for one of the survivors, the ship’s commander, Captain Charles McVay. In what’s today widely seen as an example of internecine Navy scapegoating, McVay was court-martialed and convicted of hazarding his ship. He was posthumously exonerated by President Clinton in 2000.

You’d think, maybe, that they’d have made a movie about this event a long time ago. But if you thought harder immediately thereafter, you’d understand why they didn’t. Not only is the story in its particulars mind-blowingly grisly, it’s not one to which a filmmaker can easily apply an inspirational message. There’s also the logistical difficulty of depicting men floating in the ocean and fending off shark attacks for several days. As it happens, there was a made-for-television movie made about the events for CBS, “Mission of the Shark,” and network standards and practices ensured that it didn’t even try to depict the events accurately. In the hands of filmmakers with the will and means to contrive a realistic simulation of events, the results would be unwatchable.

The movie “USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage” is not exactly unwatchable, but it’s also completely not worthy of watching. The movie begins with Japanese planes having at the Indianapolis, and the scene looks like a video game, and not a particularly good one either. Into this shameless fakery steps, goodness gracious, Nicolas Cage , in his 648 th starring role of 2016, as Captain McVay, who at one point looks into the camera and intones “There will always be war until we kill ourselves off as a species.” He’s talking, as it happens, to a framed photo of his wife, to whom he’s writing a letter, but it’s still disconcerting. There’s a lot of disconcerting in the movie’s opening scenes. Navy brass concocting the mission in Washington D.C. are shown as very contemporary cliché villains; they all talk like ceegar-chomping variations of Larry The Cable Guy as they discuss their strategy to end the war. To paraphrase Waylon Jennings, are you sure Harry Truman done it this way? I don’t think so. 

Continuing the lazy inattention to period detail, we are soon treated to the sight of a burlesque dancer with obvious breast implants entertaining our boys. One sailor makes reference to “lean, mean, fighting machines.” Okay. Some of the young Navy men are given quirky character traits—one is keeping a poetic journal of his observations, such as “The streets are alive … and the sailors … are on the prowl to night!” There are others who have their extremely particular at-home dilemmas to solve once they return from the war, as for instance a romantic triangle half-filched from “ Love Actually ” featuring Cody Walker , Adam Scott Miller and Emily Tennant . There is some depiction of racial tensions between the sailors, and this is commendable in theory, but not in practice. So much of the dialogue is so bad, and the situations so hackneyed, that the question of “What would a World War II movie written by Tommy Wiseau sound like?” in case you’ve ever asked it, is herein answered. (The script is actually by Cam Cannon and Richard Rionda Del Castro , who’ve worked with Cage before on 2014’s “Rage.”) And in case you’re wondering why the scenarists went to so much trouble with these storylines, it’s merely so they could play shark roulette with the characters when the ship goes down. The “and then some of them got run over by a truck, only in this case a grey dead-eyed truck with sharp teeth” approach is crass enough that one wonders just where the idea that this movie was honoring he sacrifice of the real-life Indianapolis sailors could possibly have come from.

The movie is directed by Mario Van Peebles , who’s been behind the camera for some at-least-engaging pictures in the past. It would be a bad play on words to say that he’s out of his depth here, so let’s just aver that his reach here definitively exceeds his grasp. As formidably, teeth-grindingly bad as much of the movie is, near the end there’s a scene that’s almost affecting, one in which Cage’s McVay has a quiet, pained conversation with the Japanese sub commander who sank his ship, played by Yutaka Takeuchi . Two minutes of sincerity don’t make up for two-hours plus of bumbling and pandering, though. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016)

Rated R for war-related images and brief language.

128 minutes

Nicolas Cage as Captain McVay

Tom Sizemore as McWhorter

Matt Lanter as Bama

Thomas Jane as Chuck Gwinn

Emily Tennant as Clara

Callard Harris as Lt. Kennedy

Brian Presley as Waxman

Patrice Cols as JP

Craig Tate as Garrison

Shamar Sanders as Quinn

Yutaka Takeuchi as Commander Hashimoto

Johnny Wactor as Connor

Mandela Van Peebles as Throdore

Joey Capone as Alvin

Cody Walker as West

• Mario Van Peebles
• Cameron Cannon
• Richard Rionda Del Castro

Cinematographer

• Andrzej Sekula
• Robert A. Ferretti
• Laurent Eyquem

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Film Review: ‘USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage’

A World War II epic about the cruiser that carried the A-bomb, and was disastrously torpedoed, never finds its dramatic life.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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One sign of an abysmal script is that a character will say something based on information it sounds like he acquired… by reading the script. In “USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage” (a title Ayn Rand would have rejected for being too stolidly Olympian), it’s 1945, and Charles McVay ( Nicolas Cage ), the captain of the USS Indianapolis, is ordered to set sail on a highly classified mission. His ship will be carrying a special cargo, one he is told could wind up saving millions of American lives. To which he responds, “Does this have something to do with the Manhattan Project?” The mission, of course, does have something to do with the Manhattan Project, but that’s the sort of line that an instructor in freshman screenwriting class would have crossed out with a bright-red felt-tip marker. It’s clunky and amateurish — way too obviously expository. It’s the sound of a whole lot of people laboring to put together a big-scale movie without the right tools.

The saga of the USS Indianapolis must have sounded, on paper, like it was destined to push “commercial” historical-hero buttons. In July 1945, the ship set sail for the U.S. air base at Tinian carrying the components of the first atomic bomb. Ordinarily, a heavy cruiser like the Indianapolis would have had an escort — a fleet of destroyers sailing right in front of it, as “blockers” to intercept enemy submarines. This time, though, the ship traveled solo to maintain secrecy. The mission went off without a hitch, but on July 19, 1945, the Indianapolis was torpedoed by an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine in the Philippine Sea, and it sank almost instantly. Several hundred men perished, and the rest of the nearly thousand survivors were cast into the sea in lifeboats and makeshift rafts, where they had to fend off injury, disease, and sharks.

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At last, we come to the magic word: Sharks . World War II movies, even when they’re as mired in the blood and muck of battle as “Saving Private Ryan” or “Hacksaw Ridge,” tend to be exceedingly high-minded combat spectacles. “USS Indianapolis” is dunked in a certain boilerplate reverence for the Greatest Generation, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the movie feels, at its core, like it was greenlit because its army of executive producers — there are 24 of them — were sold on the notion that it was going to be “Jaws” meets “Hell in the Pacific.” If it were actually an exciting thriller (historical gravity be damned!), there’d be little to complain about, but the director, the eclectic veteran Mario Van Peebles (“New Jack City,” “Panther,” “Badasssss!”), is literally out of his depth. He spends most of “USS Indianapolis” trying to manage the logistics of a movie about a ship that blasts apart, with nothing to hold the men — or story — together after that. The shark stuff isn’t suspenseful; it’s scrappy and B-movie derivative. Once the ship sinks, we’re stranded for what feels like an eternity with a bunch of actors straining to create drama without a good line of dialogue among them.

The whole film seems to have been assembled out of producers’ pitch points — as in, WWII is still “hot,” and the Indianapolis saga is a ready-made disaster movie, like “Titanic” crossed with “They Were Expendable.” That the film is opening in theaters next Friday, just one week after “Hacksaw Ridge,” could be a coincidence, or a case of the producers thinking that they could piggyback on the anticipated success of Mel Gibson’s movie. The truth, though, is that the story of the Indianapolis is such a cataclysmic downer that the only way to make an effective movie out of it would have been to create a slate of compelling characters. And the script, by Cam Cannon and the film’s producer, Richard Rionda Del Castro, is so overstated yet threadbare that there isn’t a person onscreen who commands our interest or empathy. They’re just stick figures in ’40s wartime regalia embodied by actors who come off as woefully contemporary. The one exception is Tom Sizemore, who’s been let out of his cabinet of disgrace to take on a role as the ship’s veteran mate. He does a grizzled seabee routine — he’s like a grownup Dead End Kid — that reminds you why he’s a talented actor. Then he gets his lower leg blown off, at which point any hints of precision or personality disappear from the performance.

It’s probably time that critics stopped giving Nicolas Cage a reflexive poke for his glowering hambone performances — because, frankly, he’s now toning it down. In “USS Indianapolis,” Cage tries to get mileage out of his ironic understatement of clichés like “Full speed ahead!” His Capt. McVay holds what’s left of his men together, and then, when the hellish ordeal is over, he’s called up on charges, because the government, dealing with the worst disaster in U.S. Naval history (apart from Pearl Harbor), needs a scapegoat. There’s a good scene near the end, when McVay, after his court-martial trial, has an emotional conversation with Hashimoto (Yutaka Takeuchi), the commander of the Japanese destroyer that torpedoed him. They both think they have something to apologize for, and you’re struck by how well the scene plays (Cage’s tears are totally convincing), because it’s the first scene in the movie that does. “USS Indianapolis” is a World War II “epic” that’s overscaled yet underimagined. It’s a tale of survival that never provides the audience with a basic entry point into how and why we should care.

Reviewed on-line, Oct. 31, 2016. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 110 MIN.

• Production: A Saban Films release of a USS Indianapolis, Hannibal Classics production. Producers: Richard Rionda Del Castro, Michael Mendelsohn. Executive producers: Patricia Eberle, Cam Cannon, Timothy Patrick Cavanaugh, William W. Wilson III, William V. Bromiley Jr., Shanan Becker, Ness Saban, Jamal Sannan, Mariusz Lukomski, Yan Fisher Romanovsky, Sean Leigh Hart, Frederico Lapenda, Vladimir Fernandes, Claiton Fernandes, Euzebio Munhoz Jr., Balan Melarkode, Lindsey Roth, Dylan McGinty, Kristy Eberle, Mike Nilon, Robert Nau, Raymond Hamrick, Martin J. Barab, Dama Claire.
• Crew: Director: Mario Van Peebles. Screenplay: Cam Cannon, Richard Rionda Del Castro. Camera (color, widescreen): Andrzej Sekula. Editor: Robert A. Ferretti.
• With: Nicolas Cage, Tom Sizemore, Thomas Jane, James Remar, Matt Lanter, Brian Presley, Cody Walker, Yutaka Takeuchi, Adam Scott Miller, Craig Tate, Johnny Wactor.

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Review: ‘U.S.S. Indianapolis,’ a War (Yawn) Catastrophe

• Share full article

By Neil Genzlinger

• Nov. 10, 2016

The lack of subtlety in its title tells you what you need to know about “U.S.S. Indianapolis: Men of Courage,” a dramatization of an almost unbelievable World War II catastrophe. The film, directed by Mario Van Peebles, brays the story in broad strokes and clichés as if the horror of it didn’t speak for itself, which it most certainly does.

The Indianapolis was the cruiser that in 1945 carried parts of the atomic bomb that was to be dropped on Hiroshima to Tinian Island in the Pacific, where the weapon was to be assembled. The mission was secret, so the ship traveled without escort. It successfully delivered its cargo, but on its way to its next assignment, the Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine, leaving about 880 surviving crewmen in the water. Rescue didn’t come for four days, by which time hundreds had died, some from shark attacks.

The film’s leaden treatment of this incredible story somehow sucks all the drama out of it. Nicolas Cage plays the ship’s captain, Charles McVay, but the script by Cam Cannon and Richard Rionda Del Castro never offers him a chance to do much more than stare ahead earnestly and bark orders. An assortment of secondary characters are given story lines too flimsy to register, and the special effects are equally rickety. The most interesting part of the film is its treatment of Capt. McVay’s subsequent court-martial (he was exonerated decades later), but this stretch, too, feels like a missed opportunity.

“U.S.S. Indianapolis: Men of Courage” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for gory shark attacks.

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‘uss indianapolis: men of courage’: film review.

Nicolas Cage stars in this film depicting the true story of the World War II naval disaster that claimed hundreds of lives.

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

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Considering its enormous dramatic potential, it is amazing that the real-life story of the USS Indianapolis hasn’t been turned into a feature film before now. Unfortunately, the big- screen Nicholas Cage-starrer is a sadly lackluster, cheap-looking affair that fails to do the material justice. As banal as its title, USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage lacks even the impact of the monologue about the subject delivered by Robert Shaw in Jaws .

Directed in B-movie, uninspired fashion by Mario Van Peebles (who’s proved capable of far better work with such efforts as Panther and Baadasssss ! ), the film relates the tale of the ship that was sunk in 1945 by a Japanese submarine after delivering the components of the atomic bomb to American forces in the Pacific. Because the mission was top secret, the massive vessel was not accompanied by the usual escort of destroyers. After it was destroyed, some 900 men were left stranded for four days in shark-infested waters. Rescue was slow in coming, as the Navy at first didn’t realize that the ship had been lost, and it was only a routine patrol that came upon the scene. Hundreds of the men died, many of them from shark attacks.

Release date: Nov 11, 2016

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Journeymen screenwriters Cam Cannon and Richard Rionda Del Castro attempt to provide an epic feel by fleshing out the main story with unnecessary, cliched subplots, including a love triangle featuring two sailors competing for the affections of a Southern belle, that only sap narrative momentum and elongate the running time. The lengthy final section, and most effective, concerns the court martial of the ship’s captain, Charles McVay (Cage), in which he was convicted for putting his ship in danger despite the testimony on his behalf by the Japanese commander of the submarine that sank it. McVay carried the guilt for the rest of his life and committed suicide in 1968. He was exonerated decades later in a resolution signed by President Bill Clinton.

What should be the most suspenseful part of the story, when the men are helplessly stranded in the water, is undercut by the film’s Sharknado -style approach featuring garish, unconvincing CGI effects that are more unintentionally comical than convincing.

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Cage displays unusual restraint in his performance, but because of the flat script he mainly comes across as wooden. The ensemble includes several reliable, familiar faces, including Tom Sizemore, Thomas Jane, and James Remar , who are similarly unable to overcome the hackneyed dialogue .

The film is ironically most interesting in its final minutes, which feature archival footage of the rescue and harrowing interviews with several of the incident’s real-life survivors.

Production: USS Indianapolis Production, Hannibal Pictures Distributor: Saban Films Cast: Nicolas Cage, Tom Sizemore, Thomas Jane, James Remar , Matt Lanter , Brian Presley, Cody Walker, Yutaka Takeuchi , Adam Scott Miller, Craig Tate, Johnny Wactor Director: Mario Van Peebles Screenwriters: Cam Cannon, Richard Rionda Del Castro Producers: Michael Mendelsohn , Richard Rionda Del Castro, Francis Gregory O’Toole Executive producers: Patricia Eberle , Cam Cannon, Timothy Patrick Cavanaugh, William W. Wilson III, William V. Bromiley Jr ., Shanan Becker, Ness Saban , Jamal Sannan , Mariusz Lukomski , Yan Fisher Romanovsky , Sean Leigh Hart, Frederico Lapenda , Vladimir Fernandes , Claiton Fernandes , Euzebio Munhoz Jr ., Balan Melarkode , Lindsey Roth, Dylan McGinty , Kristy Eberle , Mike Nilon , Robert Nau , Raymond Hamrick , Martin J. Barab , Dama Claire Director of photography: Andrzej Sekula Production designer: Joe Lemmon Editor: Robert A. Ferretti Costume designer: Patrick O’Driscoll Composer: Laurent Eyquem Casting: Melissa Wulfemeyer-Valenzuela

Rated R, 128 minutes

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USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage

Where to Watch

Nicolas Cage (Captain McVay) Tom Sizemore (McWhorter) Thomas Jane (Lt. Adrian Marks) Matt Lanter (Bama) James Remar (Admiral Parnell) Brian Presley (Waxman) Yutaka Takeuchi (Hashimoto) Johnny Wactor (Connor) Adam Scott Miller (D'Antonio) Cody Walker (West)

Mario Van Peebles

During World War II, an American navy ship is sunk by a Japanese submarine leaving 890 crewmen stranded in shark infested waters.

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Film Review: ‘USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage’

One sign of an abysmal script is that a character will say something based on information it sounds like he acquired… by reading the script. In “ USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage ” (a title Ayn Rand would have rejected for being too stolidly Olympian), it’s 1945, and Charles McVay ( Nicolas Cage ), the captain of the USS Indianapolis, is ordered to set sail on a highly classified mission. His ship will be carrying a special cargo, one he is told could wind up saving millions of American lives. To which he responds, “Does this have something to do with the Manhattan Project?” The mission, of course, does have something to do with the Manhattan Project, but that’s the sort of line that an instructor in freshman screenwriting class would have crossed out with a bright-red felt-tip marker. It’s clunky and amateurish — way too obviously expository. It’s the sound of a whole lot of people laboring to put together a big-scale movie without the right tools.

The saga of the USS Indianapolis must have sounded, on paper, like it was destined to push “commercial” historical-hero buttons. In July 1945, the ship set sail for the U.S. air base at Tinian carrying the components of the first atomic bomb. Ordinarily, a heavy cruiser like the Indianapolis would have had an escort — a fleet of destroyers sailing right in front of it, as “blockers” to intercept enemy submarines. This time, though, the ship traveled solo to maintain secrecy. The mission went off without a hitch, but on July 19, 1945, the Indianapolis was torpedoed by an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine in the Philippine Sea, and it sank almost instantly. Several hundred men perished, and the rest of the nearly thousand survivors were cast into the sea in lifeboats and makeshift rafts, where they had to fend off injury, disease, and sharks.

At last, we come to the magic word: Sharks . World War II movies, even when they’re as mired in the blood and muck of battle as “Saving Private Ryan” or “Hacksaw Ridge,” tend to be exceedingly high-minded combat spectacles. “USS Indianapolis” is dunked in a certain boilerplate reverence for the Greatest Generation, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the movie feels, at its core, like it was greenlit because its army of executive producers — there are 24 of them — were sold on the notion that it was going to be “Jaws” meets “Hell in the Pacific.” If it were actually an exciting thriller (historical gravity be damned!), there’d be little to complain about, but the director, the eclectic veteran Mario Van Peebles (“New Jack City,” “Panther,” “Badasssss!”), is literally out of his depth. He spends most of “USS Indianapolis” trying to manage the logistics of a movie about a ship that blasts apart, with nothing to hold the men — or story — together after that. The shark stuff isn’t suspenseful; it’s scrappy and B-movie derivative. Once the ship sinks, we’re stranded for what feels like an eternity with a bunch of actors straining to create drama without a good line of dialogue among them.

The whole film seems to have been assembled out of producers’ pitch points — as in, WWII is still “hot,” and the Indianapolis saga is a ready-made disaster movie, like “Titanic” crossed with “They Were Expendable.” That the film is opening in theaters next Friday, just one week after “Hacksaw Ridge,” could be a coincidence, or a case of the producers thinking that they could piggyback on the anticipated success of Mel Gibson’s movie. The truth, though, is that the story of the Indianapolis is such a cataclysmic downer that the only way to make an effective movie out of it would have been to create a slate of compelling characters. And the script, by Cam Cannon and the film’s producer, Richard Rionda Del Castro, is so overstated yet threadbare that there isn’t a person onscreen who commands our interest or empathy. They’re just stick figures in ’40s wartime regalia embodied by actors who come off as woefully contemporary. The one exception is Tom Sizemore, who’s been let out of his cabinet of disgrace to take on a role as the ship’s veteran mate. He does a grizzled seabee routine — he’s like a grownup Dead End Kid — that reminds you why he’s a talented actor. Then he gets his lower leg blown off, at which point any hints of precision or personality disappear from the performance.

It’s probably time that critics stopped giving Nicolas Cage a reflexive poke for his glowering hambone performances — because, frankly, he’s now toning it down. In “USS Indianapolis,” Cage tries to get mileage out of his ironic understatement of clichés like “Full speed ahead!” His Capt. McVay holds what’s left of his men together, and then, when the hellish ordeal is over, he’s called up on charges, because the government, dealing with the worst disaster in U.S. Naval history (apart from Pearl Harbor), needs a scapegoat. There’s a good scene near the end, when McVay, after his court-martial trial, has an emotional conversation with Hashimoto (Yutaka Takeuchi), the commander of the Japanese destroyer that torpedoed him. They both think they have something to apologize for, and you’re struck by how well the scene plays (Cage’s tears are totally convincing), because it’s the first scene in the movie that does. “USS Indianapolis” is a World War II “epic” that’s overscaled yet underimagined. It’s a tale of survival that never provides the audience with a basic entry point into how and why we should care.

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USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage – Blu-Ray Movie Review

Based on the true accounts of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis at the very end of the WWII in the Pacific theater and the subsequent fallout of the botched rescue attempt that cost the lives of hundreds of sailors in shark infested waters, this is a remarkable tale of survival and bravery that pays homage to those that gave all.

Violence: Yes Sex: No Language: Mild

This is a movie that is trying to give honor to the men that survived one of the most horrific maritime disasters of WWII, but it is clumsily told with wooden acting, cartoonish CGI and a script that leaves out too much factual details. The USS Indy was sent on a secret mission to deliver the atomic bomb to the island airbase that would launch the bombing raid that would end the war in the Pacific. Being secret, they had to travel quickly and without escort. It was on the return trip home that they were sunk by a Japanese U-boat. Due to a miscommunication, the men had to float in shark infested waters for over 4 days before help arrived.

The story is compelling, but the acting and special effects really distracted from the story. The CGI was worse than anything I have seen on the SciFi channel. The ship used to re-create the Indy was a museum piece, complete with brass plugs in the main guns. The aircraft looked like hand painted cells, and even the debris in the water was bad CGI. Cage refused to have his hair cut in the Navy style, so he kept it tuck behind his hat. One sailor sported a chewed off leg that looked like it had gone through a pencil sharpener. Who has a pointy stump like that after a shark attack? Perhaps it is no one persons fault and all of this criticism is due to budget constraints. This movie was available originally as a paid for streaming flick and is only now being released on BD. I’m all for honoring the brave men who sacrificed so much, but this movie is a sinker.

I already mentioned to abysmal CGI effects and the fact that most of the deck shots on the Indy looked as if they were filmed in dry dock. Overall, the picture looked sharps and the colors rendered with accuracy. The night scenes remained lit well enough that details were not lost. Sound was well recorded and the surround effects were engaging. I liked the martial musical score which added to the drama, but ultimately you are left with little to remember an hour after the movie ends.

Apparently the sharks got a hold of these; only a “making of” featurette.

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Review: Stilted, unfocused approach undoes ‘USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage’

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Although Nicolas Cage gets top billing as Navy cruiser Captain Charles McVay in “USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage,” the World War II picture is more about the ship’s crew. It tells the true story of one of America’s most infamous naval losses, filling in the details of the men’s civilian lives and wartime friendships, in order to make their ultimate fates all the starker.

Movie buffs and war historians know all about the Indianapolis, which was sunk by a Japanese submarine, leaving hundreds of sailors to bob in the sea for days, dying of dehydration and shark attacks. The incident formed the basis for a riveting monologue in “Jaws.”

Director Mario Van Peebles brings real tension and excitement to the scenes where these men are surrounded by predators, but the tone of the film is awkwardly split between the grit of modern cinema and the boisterous adventure of old Hollywood. The script by Cam Cannon and co-producer Richard Rionda Del Castro is frustratingly unfocused, jumping from incident to incident while using Cage’s flat, whispered narration to fill the gaps.

The biggest problem though is that Van Peebles and company have tried to re-create the era by making a 1940s-style film, and the artificiality of the dialogue and performances clashes with the subject. This was a horrible chapter in American history, but it seems less so when it’s happening to movie characters, not real people.

-------------

‘USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage’

MPAA rating: R, for war-related images and brief language

Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes

Playing: Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood

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Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis

True story of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, its crew's struggle to survive the sharks and exposure, and the captain's scape-goat court-martial. True story of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, its crew's struggle to survive the sharks and exposure, and the captain's scape-goat court-martial. True story of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, its crew's struggle to survive the sharks and exposure, and the captain's scape-goat court-martial.

• Robert Iscove
• Stacy Keach
• Richard Thomas
• 13 User reviews
• 4 Critic reviews

• Capt. Charles Butler McVay

• Lieutenant Steven Scott

• D'Angelo

• (as Joe Carberry)

• Major Green

• Louise McVay

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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia This is the very mission that Quint (Robert Shaw) talked about being a member of in a famous scene from Jaws (1975).
• Goofs In the scene where a seaplane lands at sea to rescue the crew, the plane used is a Grumman Albatross. However, this aircraft was not put into service until 1949. The real life aircraft that rescued the crew, was a Catalina PBY.

Hashimoto : Captain. You are a man who believes in fate?

Capt. Charles Butler McVay : No. I'm a man who was trying to accept it.

Hashimoto : It is not easy being a survivor.

• Crazy credits (Contents of Title Card 1) Following the U.S.S. Indianapolis tragedy the U.S. Navy discontinued its policy of not reporting arriving non-combat ships.
• Connections Edited from Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb (1980)

User reviews 13

• Sep 22, 2003
• September 29, 1991 (United States)
• United States
• Mission of the Shark
• Mobile, Alabama, USA
• Richard Maynard Productions
• Fries Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 1 hour 40 minutes

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Mission of the Shark

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Screen Rant

12 scenes from steven spielberg movies that are basically perfect.

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Steven Spielberg Returning To Sci-Fi For New Original UFO Movie

What happened to the blue wizards after lord of the rings, zack snyder’s dceu superman trilogy ending would’ve fixed his “god-like” movie criticism.

• Spielberg's best scenes showcase both explosive action and quiet drama, making him a versatile filmmaker in various genres.
• Iconic moments like the rolling boulder scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark show Spielberg's mastery in captivating storytelling.
• Spielberg's personal touch shines through in emotional scenes like the USS Indianapolis speech in Jaws, and he isn't afraid to step back and let his actors shine.

Throughout a career that has spanned five decades, Steven Spielberg has directed a wide variety of now-classic movies, and his best scenes showcase his flair for bold action and quiet drama all the same. The king of the summer blockbuster is behind some of the most iconic scenes of all time, including the rolling boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark and the bicycle scene from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Spielberg is more than just blockbuster action, though. He can also deliver memorable scenes in many genres without any fireworks. He is, first and foremost, a supremely adaptable filmmaker, who has mastered sci-fi, action, horror and more. Some of Steven Spielberg's best movies don't have particularly iconic, eye-catching scenes, but he can turn on the style like very few filmmakers in Hollywood.

Auteur director Steven Spielberg will return to the science-fiction genre with a mysterious new original movie surrounding a UFO-based plot.

12 Quint's USS Indianpolis Speech

Jaws (1975).

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Jaws was Steven Spielberg's first big hit, and it helped redefine the summer blockbuster, as Spielberg would do so many times in his career. Although the opening scene of Jaws and the final showdown with the shark are both iconic in their own right, the film's most enduring and captivating scene is much quieter and less flashy. It consists of Quint telling the other two men waiting for the shark to reappear about his experience on the USS Indianapolis.

Spielberg didn't want to cast Robert Shaw in Jaws to begin with, but his USS Indianapolis monologue proves that he was perfect for the role. Although the men are drunkenly exchanging playful stories, everything slows down for Quint to tell them about how the ship sank, and the crew had to survive in the water for days as sharks repeatedly came back to pick them off one-by-one. Shaw's performance is incredibly powerful, and he also helped to rewrite the monologue.

11 Communicating With The Aliens

Close encounters of the third kind (1977), close encounters of the third kind.

Steven Spielberg followed Jaws with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and these two movies coming back-to-back helped establish him as one of the most exciting directors to come out of the 1970s. Close Encounters was Spielberg's first exploration of the sci-fi genre, and it displays the palpable sense of wonder that he can infuse into his stories. Many alien movies are about a hostile race trying to conquer or destroy the Earth, but Close Encounters is far gentler.

The scene which best encapsulates Spielberg's wide-eyed style in the sci-fi genre features a group of scientists trying to communicate with an alien ship using colors and melodies. It's a beautiful and fascinating scene, but the sense of mystery is undercut by the constant chatter of scientists. They don't see what Roy and Jillian, or the audience, see. They are just trying to do their jobs.

10 Indy's Introduction

Raiders of the lost ark (1981), raiders of the lost ark.

Steven Spielberg knows that the first scene of a movie is vitally important, and many of his best scenes come right at the beginning. Raiders of the Lost Ark has one of the best opening scenes in the history of cinema , and this acts as a perfect introduction for the character who leads Spielberg's greatest franchise. There have been five Indiana Jones movies, but the rolling boulder scene is still Indy's most unforgettable moment.

Raiders of the Lost Ark's opening scene introduces Indiana Jones as a brave, skilled adventurer who is willing to risk his life for ancient artifacts, but it also humanizes him by showing his fears, his ability to narrowly escape death, and his various oversights. Indy does of course snatch the golden idol and escape from a massive boulder as his theme tune kicks in, but he eventually has to hand the idol straight to his biggest rival.

9 Cycling Across The Sky

E.t. the extra terrestrial (1982), e.t. the extra-terrestrial.

Few scenes sum up who Steven Spielberg is as a director as perfectly as the cycling scene from E.T. It's a thrilling action sequence with a sprinkle of magic, and the result is hard to resist. As Elliot and his friends race to return E.T. to his own people, they have to dodge the authorities on the way. The moment that their bicycles lift into the sky is a wonderful triumph , and it perfectly captures Elliot's childish sense of naive optimism.

The bicycle scene is not just visually breathtaking, it's also the perfect way to bring E.T. to a close. After one last piece of magic against the setting sun, Elliot has to say goodbye to E.T. The alien was based on Spielberg's own childhood imaginary friend, and the ramifications of growing up and letting go of one's childhood are clear. Spielberg has said that E.T. is his favorite of all his own movies, and the personal connection helps explain why.

8 The Mine Cart Chase

Indiana jones and the temple of doom (1984), indiana jones and the temple of doom.

Steven Spielberg doesn't often direct sequels or prequels, but he made an exception for Indiana Jones. Temple of Doom is a prequel to the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, showing a slightly younger Indiana Jones trading historical artifacts for money. He's a less noble character at this point in his career, and Temple of Doom is much darker than Raiders in many other ways too. The plot features human sacrifices, child slavery and demonic possession.

The mine cart chase was one of a few Temple of Doom scenes originally written for Raiders , but it fits perfectly with the story of the prequel. The third act chase scene is brimming with tension, and Spielberg masterfully raises the stakes and reverses the fortune of his heroic trio multiple times . Prequels rarely manage to inject so much jeopardy, because audiences know that the characters have to survive for the next movie, but Temple of Doom is an exception.

7 Young Indy

Indiana jones and the last crusade (1989), indiana jones and the last crusade.

The final film in Steven Spielberg's original Indiana Jones trilogy provides the perfect send-off for the adventurer. It starts with a flashback sequence that shows a young Indy on one of his first adventures, and it ends with Indy riding off into the sunset having reconciled with his father and defeated the Nazis once again. It would have been a perfect finale if not for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The scene with a young Indiana Jones shows his moral fortitude and his courage from an early age, and it also shows the origins of his hat and whip, and even the scar on his chin. The train chase does more to establish his character than pretty much the entirety of Temple of Doom. There are several highlights, but the trick with the magician's box shows Spielberg at his most playful, as he lets the trick unfold in one shot.

6 Rexy's First Appearance

Jurassic park (1993), jurassic park.

Jurassic Park spawned a multi-billion dollar franchise, and Jurassic World 4 is set to kick off a whole new era, but Spielberg's 1993 original is still by far the best movie in the series. Although there is plenty of adventure and Spielberg's signature sense of magic, there are also moments when Jurassic Park becomes a full-blown horror movie, and the introduction of the T. Rex is one such moment.

Although the more recent movies in the franchise have earned a lot of money by throwing dinosaurs at each other and unleashing them on people, Spielberg's original shows that all of this is pointless without a compelling human story at the film's heart. The T. Rex scene only works so well because Jurassic Park does the hard work of establishing the characters beforehand.

5 The Girl In The Red Coat

Schindler's list (1993), schindler’s list (1993).

Schindler's List could be Steven Spielberg's best movie, and it's certainly among his most important. The director has spoken about the emotional toll that making the movie took on him, but his work helped to guide public consciousness on the holocaust, and honor the millions of victims. The film is shot almost entirely in black-and-white, with the exception of a little girl wearing a red coat.

Schindler's List 's girl in the red coat stands out from the rest of the action. The splash of a color in a gray and violent world represents the last remaining shred of optimism and innocence, but even this is snuffed out as the Nazis storm the Krakow ghetto and begin indiscriminately slaughtering Jewish people. The scene shows the incredible scale of the atrocity, but focusing on one girl amid the chaos helps contextualize the tragedy even more.

4 Storming Omaha Beach

Saving private ryan (1998), saving private ryan.

Saving Private Ryan 's D-Day sequence isn't just the outstanding moment of the film, it's also one of the greatest scenes in any war movie. It's so captivating and impactful that many people remember it as the movie's opening scene, even though the story actually begins with a much older Private Ryan visiting a war cemetery. This helps to visualize the scale of the war's casualties before the D-Day scene shows the action at ground-level.

The Omaha beach landing is a whirlwind of chaos , with explosions all around and gunfire ringing through the air, but Spielberg also slows things down to dig into Captain Miller's internal state. The sound is reduced to a dull ringing as he surveys the brutal carnage all around him. Soldiers are engulfed by flames and scream silently, a dazed soldier searches the beach for his missing arm, and waves turn red with blood.

3 The Falcon Chase

The adventures of tintin (2011), the adventures of tintin.

The Adventures of Tintin shows that Steven Spielberg is not afraid to take risks, even at a late stage in his career when he has nothing to prove to anyone. The director's first animated feature is a fitting adaptation of Hergé's series of comic books, even if the 3D animation has one or two shaky moments. The Adventures of Tintin has the same joyous sense of adventure as Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The motorcycle chase is a glorious slice of adventure, and it shows an incredible flair for animation for a director who had been working for decades in live-action. Most of the action scene plays out in a single shot. This is Spielberg letting his imagination run free, without any of the constraints or the practical concerns of live-action. A sequel to The Adventures of Tintin has been stuck in development hell for years, with Spielberg's co-producer Peter Jackson set to take over the directing duties.

2 "America"

West side story (2021), west side story.

West Side Story was a box office bomb, but Steven Spielberg's first musical was yet another indicator that the director was still capable of surprising his audience. The second film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's musical, West Side Story was nominated for 7 Oscars. Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress , and songs like "America" are the main reason why.

Spielberg uses close-ups and medium shots for much of the singing to highlight the expressions of his performers, but he gives the dancers a wide shot to act as their stage for the song's dance break. West Side Story gets dark, but there are moments filled with color and joy that any musical fan will enjoy. The conflict at the mixer and "Gee, Officer Krupke" are two other gorgeous scenes.

1 Sammy's Toy Train Crash

The fabelmans (2022), the fabelmans.

The Fablemans is loosely based on Steven Spielberg's own childhood , and it provides the perfect insight into the creative mind of the filmmaker. Young Sammy Fabelman's sense of wonder at seeing his first movie on the big screen is infectious, and it's especially poignant, seeing as Spielberg has since provided similar moments for millions of film lovers all over the world.

The scene from Cecil B. Demille's The Greatest Show on Earth plays on loop in Sammy's head until he can get a train set for Hannukah and crash it into a toy car. Most of the film follows a slightly older Sammy as he takes his first steps as a filmmaker, but this early scene is key to understanding his fascination with the art form, and it also reveals a lot about Spielberg's curious nature.