Below (film)

Infobox Film
name = Below

---

image_size =
caption = Theatrical release poster
director = David Twohy
producer = Darren Aronofsky
Sue Baden-Powell
Michael Zoumas
writer = Lucas Sussman
Darren Aronofsky
narrator =
starring = Bruce Greenwood
Olivia Williams
Holt McCallany
Scott Foley
music = Graeme Revell
cinematography =
editing =
distributor =
released = October 11, 2002
runtime = 105 min.
country = UK
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:259369
imdb_id = 0276816

"Below" is a 2002 World War II horror film directed by David Twohy. It was written by Lucas Sussman, Darren Aronofsky and David Twohy, and stars Bruce Greenwood, Olivia Williams, Matthew Davis and Holt McCallany.

It was filmed on location in Lake Michigan (for exteriors, using the WWII-era U.S. Navy submarine, USS "Silversides") and at Pinewood Studios.

Plot

The "USS Tiger Shark" is a submarine on patrol in the Atlantic Ocean in 1943. The submarine is ordered to pick up survivors spotted adrift by a British patrol plane. At the wreckage, they retrieve three lone survivors - a British nurse and two sailors, one wounded - of a British hospital ship that was torpedoed several days earlier. After that, the "Tiger Shark" must avoid a German warship attempting to find and destroy them. The submarine has several encounters with the German warship and suffers heavy damage from depth charges in the process.

The Commanding Officer of the "Tiger Shark", Lieutenant Commander Brice (Bruce Greenwood), discovers that the wounded sailor is actually a German POW, and shoots him because he thinks the German has been causing strange noises to attract the German warship. Meanwhile, eerie events begin to manifest themselves and seem to be related to the recent death of the previous captain, Commander Winters. Winters had been killed after the "Tiger Shark" torpedoed and sank a German ship. Winters had ordered the sub to surface and had then gone topside with his senior officers to make sure the ship had sunk and to see if there were any survivors. According to LT Commander Brice, Winters had wanted a souvenir from the wreck and had fallen and hit his head on the side of the sub while reaching for his souvenir, then fell into the ocean and drowned before he could be rescued.

However, as the eerie events mount - strange voices are heard, a series of mechanical problems keeps the submarine turning back towards the site of the sunken German ship, and crewmen are killed at an alarming rate from various problems - the British nurse and sailor, and one of the junior officers on the "Tiger Shark", begin to suspect that more is going on than just mechanical problems. They also begin to question LT Commander Brice's version of how and why Commander Winters died.

It turns out that the three senior officers, Brice, Loomis and Coors, were responsible for the death of Winters. The British ship's design was almost perfectly similar to that of a German ship and the USS Tiger Shark had accidentaly fired upon a friendly ship, the ship Claire and Kingsley were on. The three officers could not afford this blotch on their records and staged their own story, killing Winters who actually tried to save wounded in the ocean. This is discovered after Coors is mysteriously killed while working on the exterior of the sub and Loomis becomes crazed after seeing Winters on the ship and drowns outside. Everyone on board is killed except for a select few including Brice, O'Dell, Claire and others. Another ship comes around and everyone tries to get its attention but do not know if it is an enemy of ally. Brice shoots himself after Claire tries to persuade him to hand the gun over. He shoots himeslf again and the remaining survivors are picked up by a friendly ship.

Cast

* Bruce Greenwood - Lieutenant Commander Brice
* Matthew Davis - Ensign Douglas O'Dell
* Olivia Williams - Claire Paige
* Holt McCallany - Lieutenant Paul Loomis
* Scott Foley - Lieutenant Steven Coors
* Jason Flemyng - Stumbo
* Dexter Fletcher - Kingsley
* Nick Chinlund - Chief

Production

The producers used the "USS Silversides (SS-236)", a WW II submarine based in Muskegon, Michigan, for exteriors of the "USS Tiger Shark." The sub was towed out into Lake Michigan.

Matthew Leitch and Dexter Fletcher appeared together in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers", where they were also under the command of an officer named Winters.

Reception

The film gained an approval rating of 63% on Rotten Tomatoes with 41 out of 65 reviews calling it fresh. [cite news |url=http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/below/ |title=Below Movie Reviews |publisher=Rotten Tomatoes |accessdate=2008-03-16 ] Reviewers on Metacritic gave a mixed response with a 55% approval rating based on 20 reviews. [cite news |url=http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/below |title=Below (2002): Reviews |publisher=Metacritic |accessdate=2008-03-16 ] Below also gained mixed reviews in the press. Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+ rating, calling it a "handsome, haunting submarine thriller". [cite news |url=http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,363157~1~0~below,00.html |title=Below - Movie Review - Entertainment Weekly |publisher=Entertainment Weekly |accessdate=2008-03-16 ] Edward Guthmann from the San Francisco Chronicle gave a mainly negative review stating that the dialogue was "heavy on sarcasm and puncturing insults, never captures the World War II period but sounds ridiculously anachronistic". [cite news |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/10/18/DD241503.DTL#below |title=FILM CLIPS / Also opening today |publisher=San Francisco Chronicle |accessdate=2008-03-16 ] Variety Magazine gave the movie a mixed review stating that "the strenuous seriousness the film applies to an idea that is finally silly at its core steadily increases the impression of overwrought artificiality as matters progress". [cite news |url=http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=review&reviewid=VE1117918959&cs=1 |title=Below Review - Variety.com |publisher=Variety Magazine |accessdate=2008-03-16 ]

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0276816|title=Below
* [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20021018/REVIEWS/210180302/1023 Below] review at [RogerEbert.com]
*amg title|id=1:259369|title=Below