Below (2002) begins with the crew of the USS Tiger Shark picking up three survivors from a recently sunk British hospital ship. Things begin to go wrong on board, and some of the men become superstitious and afraid. As the submarine is pursued by a hostile vessel, things begin to break down on board the Tiger Shark.

This film wasn’t the best film I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t even the best film I’ve seen in the last week (that goes to either The Hitman’s Bodyguard or From Hilde with Love). However, I still enjoyed watching it. Below is pretty decent for what it is, considering the budget it had. Holt McCallany’s character was intriguing, and each of the other characters had some degree of depth (pun intended). There’s a cool moment early in the film where some music by Benny Goodman plays on a gramophone, to interesting results, but this plot device doesn’t last long. The film’s set felt very real, if a little too big, and it felt cramped and uncomfortable, as a real submarine would.

Now, the dialogue of the film was decent, especially in the later parts, but I found it very awkward at the beginning. There are a few minor realism problems, also. A ship chases the submarine and attempts to use large hooks to catch it, but this usage is unrealistic as the Germans did not do this. In addition, active sonar is used by the pursuing vessel, but use and development of this was not prioritised by Germany. In addition, a real WW2 submarine would have been a little more cramped than the one in the film, which obviously had to be expanded to fit filming crews. My main problem with the film is that halfway through the process of making it, the script was altered to try and add a horror element. I don’t have a problem with the idea, but I think it didn’t need to be there. The film works just fine as a thriller, in my opinion, and if the horror element was removed the film would barely change.

Final rating:

Enjoyability: 3/5

Accuracy: 3/5

Storytelling: 3/5

TOTAL: 9/15 or 60%