Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Down Periscope (1996)

Director: David S. Ward

Writers: Hugh Wilson, Andrew Kurtzman, Eliot Wald

Composer: Randy Edelman

Starring: Kelsey Grammer, Lauren Holly, Rob Schneider, Harry Dean Stanton, Bruce Dern, William H. Macy, Ken Hudson Campbell, Toby Huss, Duane Martin, Jonathan Penner, Bradford Tatum, Harland Williams, Rip Torn, Patton Oswalt

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A rusty sub. A rebel commander. A renegade crew. When destiny called, they should have hung up.

Plot: Lt. Cmdr. Tom Dodge is assigned as Captain to the USS Stingray, an old diesel driven submarine that has seen better days. With a crew that consists only of weird guys (and a gal), he's headed against the atomic powered USS Orlando, with the mission to destroy a dummy battleship.



My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

I didn't expect to like this as much as I did but it's worth seeing for the cast alone.  Most of the characters were fun.  I dig Rob Schneider but he wasn't doing it for me.  It's not a fun role to begin with but I bet Paul Giamatti could've done something fun with it.  It's a lot more vulgar than I was expecting (a plus) and it's nice to hear Grammer swearing.  He's very likable as are so many of the cast.  Toby Huss is hilarious and his Sinatra is scary good...



A lot of people probably think this is just a dumb comedy but it's really well directed and put together.  The pacing is lickety split and it's just fun as hell.  Would you believe the guy that directed this wrote THE STING (1973)?  Well, he also wrote THE STING II (1983) so there's that.

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