Anytime that you have the chance to watch Tom Hanks in a movie, you gotta take it. So it was that Mrs. Grandstander and I settled in to watch "Greyhound" tonight on Apple TV (which I got for free for one year when I bought my new iPhone last month). I believe that this is a movie that was supposed to be a theatrical release this summer, because I'm sure I remember seeing a trailer for it way back when we were able to go to the movin' picture shows in an actual the-a-ter. Looks like the producers gave up on that idea and decided to send it to a streamer, so here we are.
In this one, Hanks plays a US Navy Captain in charge of a convoy of cargo and other military ships crossing the Atlantic during WW II. At some point, ships would enter a "no man's land" of sorts where they were too far at sea to be able to have aerial cover. This tells the story of one such crossing and how the ships dealt with continued attacks from German U-boats during their fifty unprotected hours.
The movie opens with Hanks meeting his girlfriend in a hotel lobby in San Francisco just before he ships out. That took all of about five minutes and from that point on, this was one slam-bang, non-stop, action filled movie. The movie is only 93 minutes long, and it pretty much never stops with the sounds things like "hard right rudder" and "I've got the conn" and "deploy depth charges" and "Captain's on the bridge" and, well, you get the idea.
As always, Hanks is terrific, and he alone makes this one well worth seeing (he also wrote the screenplay; talented guy!). If I have one quibble with the movie it's that it was very dark, and that made it hard to make out some of what you were seeing. Also, about halfway through, we switched to closed captions, and that helped a great deal in following the movie. The sea battle scenes, which I assume were mostly CGI, were terrific, and there was one very touching moment in it that brought Mrs. G. to tears.
The Grandstander gives this one Two and One-Half Stars. Marilyn would probably give it at least Three.
Correction: Apple TV+ is the paid service you got for free with your iPhone purchase and which allows you to watch Greyhound. Apple TV is both a free app and a streaming device both of which are separate from Apple TV+. (Yes, it is needlessly confusing).
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