Greyhound is built for speed

Greyhound is an old-fashioned movie and I mean that in the best sense of the term. In another lifetime it might have been an MGM movie turned out in the early Fifties with maybe Robert Taylor or Robert Montgomery in the leading role. Instead there is Tom Hanks, the closest thing we have to an old school movie star, doing sterling service to a script which he co-wrote.

The film is based on the novel, The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester, and it focuses on one of the less heralded parts of the Second World War, the Battle of the Atlantic. Millions of tonnes of food, weapons, and supplies came to Britain across the Atlantic in convoys of merchant ships as a vital lifeline in 1942. Thousands of sailors lost their lives in the process.

Vital air cover was provided by the RAF at the British end and the US Air Force at the other end. Their range was limited however and the bit in the middle – known as ‘The Pit’ – left the convoy entirely at the mercy of packs of German U-boats who preyed on the slow-moving merchantmen.

Their only defence was a thin screen of British and American warships to protect from the undersea threat. One of these is the destroyer code named Greyhound, skippered by Captain Krause (Tom Hanks) whose job it is to lead the convoy through the hellscape of the Pit.

Greyhound is a classic ticking clock scenario. It takes 50 hours to traverse this deadly stretch of ocean and the film is segmented into four-hour watches with the clock ticking down relentlessly until the point when they come under the protective umbrella of air cover again.

The film is merciless in its pacing. There is a brief introduction in which Krause’s personal stakes are established and then we are straight into it. The film runs for 91 minutes – less if you discount the credits – and the pace is brutal.

There is no respite for these men and director Aaron Schneider ratchets the tension constantly in a very well-organised film. There is no sense of who these men are, there is no time spent on characterisation, but I didn’t mind that. I wasn’t too bothered about their backstories, but I was extremely bothered about whether they would make it alive.

The only one we know a little about is Krause. We know that he is a devoutly religious man – a trait lifted straight from the novel – and this means the film becomes a masterclass in minimalism from the unusually terse Hanks. He brings a moral dimension to the character which is not normally seen in such films; when his crew cheers 50 dead Germans, Krause quietly muses on 50 dead souls. I can’t think of a contemporary actor other than Hanks who could have carried this off.

Hanks is a World War Two buff – he was the producer of Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010) and the appeal of the citizen soldier is obviously a strong one. Krause is another in the same mould as Damian Lewis’s Dick Winters in Band of Brothers, or indeed Hanks’ own Captain John Millar in Saving Private Ryan (1998). The sense of taking up arms as a civic duty plainly resonates with Hanks and it informs Krause.

We know from that brief scene at the start that he is a career officer who is now being given a chance to see active service after Pearl Harbor. He is not a conscript; this is what he dedicated his life to and there are few better at portraying the nobility of service than Hanks.

The action is non-stop and the computer effects are very good on the small screen to the point where they make you pine to see this on a big screen, but in the end it is the quiet humanity of Tom Hanks that stayed with me when Greyhound had run its race.