Just a few days ago the actual wreckage of the USS Indianapolis was discovered on the bottom of the Pacific, 18000 feet below the surface. When I heard that, I decided that I wanted to see this movie that was made as a tribute to the crew and events. I was completely prepared not to like it and to be regretting my decision to watch it within a few minutes. But having watched it I found myself scratching my head over the number of really bad reviews and wondering where they came from. I thought this was a pretty decent movie. Some people are getting picky about the special effects, etc. - but I found myself wondering if the bad reviews aren't somewhat similar to a shark feeding frenzy. So many people are saying bad things about it, so more and more people just pile on for the sake of piling on. But as the movie progressed I was asking myself the question: "what's (really) not to like about this?" Historically, it's a pretty accurate telling of the story. The USS Indianapolis set sail for Tinian without an escort to deliver components for the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima within a few days of the events depicted here. Having completed that mission, it was left unescorted and was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. The ship sank, and the crew found itself in shark infested waters battling for survival for days because the Navy didn't really bother to look for them. (It was a classified mission, after all, and the Navy didn't want to really admit that the Indianapolis had even been out there and didn't report the Indianapolis overdue.) The bulk of the movie deals with the attempts of the crew to survive (about 75% of them were either killed instantly in the attack, drowned, died from various kinds of exposure or were taken by the sharks.) I found the story compelling and - in the end - even emotional.
Once the rescue is completed, the story turns in its last half hour or so to the search for a scapegoat. The Navy couldn't admit that it was responsible for leaving the Indianapolis unescorted and for its refusal to launch a search, so someone had to shoulder the blame. The choice was Capt. Charles McVay, portrayed by Nicolas Cage. I find myself wondering if Cage's presence isn't the real reason for many of the bad reviews. For whatever reason my sense is that Cage is looked upon with more than a bit of disrespect, and even contempt as an actor. There's no doubt that he's made more than a few stinkers, but then again he's made a huge number of movies so there are going to be some bad ones. This, in my opinion, was one of his better ones. I found him believable as McVay. McVay ends up being court martialled for failure to give the order to abandon ship quickly enough (he was acquitted on that) and for not taking sufficient evasive measures to avoid the torpedo-ing (on that he was found guilty.) As a character, perhaps McVay could have been fleshed out a bit more. The writers chose instead to give us too much backstory on too many of the crew members, apparently to provide some romantic and racial melodrama that could play out unnecessarily all through the movie. That was a weakness. I would have liked to have learned more about McVay's background. What we do eventually learn about the Captain of the Indianapolis is that he was scapegoated - the only captain of a vessel sunk by the Japanese who was court martialled for it. In the end, McVay was stricken with guilt over a number of things - mostly, it was survivor's guilt because he made it but so many of his crew didn't. He was haunted by that, hounded by the press and blamed by many of the families of those who died. It was also suggested (and - whether there's evidence to back this up or not - I find it believable) that he was tormented by his relatively small role in the development of the atomic bomb. In the end, guilt overcame him and he committed suicide in 1968, only to be finally exonerated by a resolution of the US Congress signed by President Clinton in 2000.
I thought all that was pretty well portrayed. Cage was good in the role, and although the role was much more limited, I also thought that Japanese actor Yutaka Takeuchi was solid as Hashimoto - the commander of the sub that sank Indianapolis. Controversially called as a prosecution witness at McVay's court martial (the only time an enemy officer has ever been called to testify at the court martial of an American officer) Hashimoto's testimony was actually sympathetic to McVay's position, and Hashimoto later became involved in efforts to have McVay exonerated. Although fictional, I thought the portrayal of Hashimoto and McVay meeting and speaking after the court martial and confessing their regrets to each other was quite powerful.
My advice would be to ignore the bad reviews and give this movie a chance. It's not a blockbuster by any means, but it's a pretty solid piece of history and it presents a good story. (8/10)
