Member review

The Cruel Sea is a realistic representation of the Battle of the Atlantic. It has good tension scenes and a fair bit of action, but the majority of the film focusses of the lives and relationships of the ship's crew. It shows good character development and realistic, believable, human interaction. It tells the story of a real crew, of real people, rather than superhuman heroes, as they would be in an action film.

The novel (The Cruel Sea) upon which the film is based, was written by Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Monsarrat who served in the Battle of the Atlantic on a Flower class Corvette, so, in terms of historical inaccuracy, this film is flawless.

There is little music, as you would imagine there to be on a warship, hundreds of miles away from any musical instrument, and most of the sound is either speaking or the repetitive noise of the ship's ASDIC system.

There are long sections of films that could be perceived as 'boring' by a less historically fanatic viewer, and, to them I would not recommend this film.