In Enemy Hands (2005)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Instant Favorite.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Recap: Nathan Travers is the Chief aboard the USS Swordfish, captained by the young and somewhat inexperienced Lt Cmdr Randall Sullivan. On their way home they come upon not one but two German submarines. They manage to sink one but is so damaged they must abandon ship. The few survivors are rescued by the second German submarine. However, Sullivan is infected by a contagious disease and soon it spreads among the German crew. Finally they find themselves in a dire situation, prisoners aboard an enemy submarine and lacking both fuel and supplies.Comments: Looking at the cast is enough to decide to watch this movie. Macy is a personal favorite that is cast in a little unusual role for him, in a main character in what resembles an action. Then there is Scott Caan, Til Schweiger and Thomas Kretchmann among others. Great cast, that gives a good performance. And an added bonus is that the German crew speaks German among themselves, makes it so much more plausible.However, the story is not really up to the task. Yes, clearly adequate for a movie but nothing extra. The developments are mostly clear well beforehand and there are no major twists, no real threats. It lacks a little concerning suspense. Still, it is never boring to watch, something happens all the time.A really good movie, good entertainment for a night.6/10

Boy was this movie bad. The premise was horrible and unlikely. I do not pretend to be an expert on submarines, but, I do know a few things: 1.Submarines would never pick up extra passengers, especially not enemies. They have limited space, air and supplies, why would they change the equation. 2.the acting sucks. Every scene with Macy and his wife was cheesy at best. Over all no one really does an outstanding job, although I think that the Germans were better over all. The dialog is also very bad.The one good thing I can say about this movie is that the Germans actually speak German... but then again they use incorrect forms of address. I recommend watching "Das Boot" instead.

While there was some redeeming qualities to this movie, I don't think I would of ever bothered watching it if I knew beforehand how unrealistic it was. You'd think the producers have never seen a submarine movie in their lives. The technical adviser ought never to be allowed to work on a war movie again! Again and again and again there were these U boat or submarine torpedo shots being made were the the firing ship has no visual, no periscope view presumably on sound bearings and hitting other submerged submarines repeatedly and at various depths. This just didn't happen. Sound bearing shots could be made but only if either the other ship were large and slow, offering a broadside, or there was a huge amount of good luck for the firing sub.All though the movie you get the impression that German submarines were hardly ever surfaced. They hardly ever showed this and when they did I don't remember once where there were lookouts posted. That was the main idea. Look for the enemy.Finally at the end they portray an American Destroyer knocking out a SUBMERGED sub with five inch guns! This is absolutely absurd! This could not happen. The only time gunnery could be effective was against surfaced ships. U-boats under the surface were attacked with depth charges and only depth charges, unless the surface ship had hedgehogs or some variation of this system. And Hedgehogs were definitely NOT being portrayed here! I think the problem is mostly a lack of historical understanding mixed with an over weighting of creative license. Maybe they also just assumed that everyone else is going to be as uninformed as they are about the pertinent reality.They could of made this a lot better having these things righted. In fact with the mixed language format, and the actors involved and well as even just the CGI business, mixed with the interiors, this could have been a very good film.

It was very close to awful but still not as bad as the "U-571" which serves as back stopper regarding U-boat movies. The story was full of flaws and the manuscript didn't hold much water.I always try to spot the obvious details that cry out sloppiness and if realism was an issue in making this film, they didn't succeed: The filmmakers couldn't even resist the chance of making the bad ones speak "evil German" and plaster their boats with swastikas and other Nazi-symbols. The Krigsmarine was proud not to "heil" at anyone, they shook hands even with Hitler (and reluctantly succeeded with a small "heil"), and I'm sure that if a flag was brought along, it would have been the marine's own. The same goes for the swastika in the soup cup!The depth charges landed almost on top of the boats and still they survived. Some poor explosives the allies used! And then they actually succeeded downing a submerged sub with their cannons. That was impressive!I could not help being impressed of how spacious the subs seemed – and yes that the air was so clean that they were allowed to smoke in it.When the boat finally surfaces, the loose ends are tied up within 3 minutes; this was much to fast for me - and then again it wasn't. It should have stopped 90 minutes earlier. Don't watch it!Macy is a good actor but absolute no hero type. He'll always be that cracking up Fargo-guy to me.