I make no qualms about this statement: Saving Private Ryan is one of the best movies ever made. It's definitely in my top 5 list, and might even be in my top 2-3 movies of all-time. It's the best World War II movie ever made (in my humble opinion), and a high water mark in the legendary careers of both Tom Hanks and director Steven Spielberg. Its loss to Shakespeare In Love for Best Picture is certainly one of the all-time upsets in Oscars history. So my expectations for Greyhound were certainly high after viewing its first trailer. Then... COVID hit and made this film a "straight to streaming" casualty. Luckily, I have a free one-year trail to Apple TV+ and was able to watch it this weekend. The results are a mixed bag. It's filled with exciting action sequences, but lacks the depth of characters and storytelling I was expecting.
Put simply, Greyhound is essentially the third act of a war film. It's only 90 minutes in length (actually about 1 hour 20 minutes when you take out the opening/closing credits). It handles the backstory through a pre-movie credit sequence and gives us one scene with Tom Hanks character before throwing us directly into the mission. Hanks plays a sea captain in charge of leading a battleship that is protecting allied ships as they cross the Atlantic Ocean on their way to re-supply the troops in Europe. It's his first run as captain of a ship, and its his job to seek out and destroy German U-Boats as they try to down allied ships.
Like I said earlier, this movie is one long battle... and not much else. We get a glimpse of the other sailors on the ships, and we hear voices from other ships in the armada, but we never get anything more than that. Elizabeth Shue also appears in a brief scene to give Hanks' character a little bit of depth, but it's largely a forgettable scene. I really wanted to like this one, but it was hard to care about anyone besides Hanks' character. His charm and acting ability is one of the only saving graces of this film. Hanks is credited as the screenwriter of this one (his fist screenplay credit, ever), and while he does a good job of keeping the pace moving forward, I just wish more was committed to building the backstory. Imagine if Saving Private Ryan skipped straight to the final battle and only introduced us to characters and story via some titles at the beginning of the film. That's what we get here.
I'm glad I had the free trial to Apple TV+, however I wouldn't go seeking out this movie if I had to pay for it. It was a 90 minute movie that needed to be an hour longer.
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