bruce.evans Reviews

The Departed (2006)

The Departed--and not a minute too soon.

[1/10 · 3 September 2007]

This is a terrible movie. It's two and a half hours of obscenities instead of script, violence instead of acting and Jack Nicholson playing who else but Jack Nicholson.

I'm sure a lot of people will say all this was necessary to give the grittiness to the movie. It isn't; think of the great gangster movies of the thirties, forties and fifties. Bogart and the lot never said any more than, "darn" and most violence was implied rather than cataloged.

It's no wonder society is running out of control when this type of sick movie wins an Oscar.

Bruce

Submarine X-1 (1968)

Not bad for a B movie

[6/10 · 7 August 2006]

Remember, it's a B movie from 1968--before the days of computer graphics, Star Wars and the like. As such it's an entertaining ninety minute war movie. There's no sex, no nudity, no swearing. You can watch it with your kids.

It's an old fashioned good guys triumph movie. What spoiled it a bit for me were some of the factual inaccuracies. In particular, the scuba equipment is 1968 issue, not WWII. The actors are using modern single stage compressed air scuba gear. Besides not being available in WWII, it would have been a dead give away. If anyone has seen the bubbles on the surface such gear causes, you'd know stealth is not the word you'd use.

In WWII they used double hose, oxygen re-breathing apparatus. No air was released into the water so there were no air bubbles to give away the whereabouts of the diver. As well, in WWII, the divers used goggles rather than face masks.

The second inaccuracy was the commander's hat. It was not a naval hat but a guards regimental hat with its visor coming down over the eyes of the wearer--the brim on a naval officer's hat was much narrower and higher enabling him to see out across the sea.

In spite of this, I enjoyed it.