By: Keaton Marcus

Tom Hanks is here to help you through the pandemic with his new WW2 destroyer thriller about some unremarkable men rising to incredible challenges. In this incredibly bland, but visually stunning film, there's a lot of ups and downs. The characters aren't nearly as robust as its action sequences, and it consists of a very cartoonish plot that only stretched to about 90 minutes. But this should float your boat if you want some good old patriotism. The performances are all-around decent, and Hanks is back and better than ever as a Captain. Although this isn't nearly as good as Captain Phillips, it's always a dream seeing this 64-year-old actor hit the screen. I won't highly recommend it, but if you want something both new and free, why not?

The movie takes place during the Battle of the Atlantic. That battle was real as hell, but this actual story where a convoy of American, British, and Canadian ships were not under air cover for 50 whole hours was dreamt up by C.S Forester for his 1955 novel The Good Shepard. In the movie, Hanks' Captain Krause leads the group of Allies with his destroyer Greyhound, and they face the dangers of the enemy. This has to be one of Hanks' most perfunctory movies he's ever starred in or took part in making. And that isn't exactly a negative thing, considering the subject matter, but I'm a little disappointed. However, the pretty CGI and the lead performance do tend to save it.

Tom Hanks has had a good run recently. Lately, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his truly incredible performance as Fred Rodgers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. He also starred once last time as Woody in the grand Toy Story 4. This may not be an excellent film or even performance, but he sure gets the job done. The screenplay doesn't help a lot, and it constantly drags down the actors. But Mr. Hanks experienced enough to not succumb to such a thing. Elisabeth Shue plays Krause's wife, Evelyn, but is sadly completely wasted. The director gave little or even no time to explore her character enough.

The director, Aaron Schneider, has helmed one movie before this, a Certified Fresh movie called Get Low. While his fast-paced direction in Greyhound is sincerely appreciated, the running time of just 1 hour 22 minutes (that's without credits) never gives time to have enough character expansion. Hanks' Krause is minimally developed at best and is mostly just a brave Captain with a bunch of stoic facial expressions. It is just too brief to make the movie truly above average. The action, though, is done marvelously, with expertly executed cinematography. The tension is appropriately high too. It's frustrating that you won't get to see a war film of high-standard, but it'll do the job.

The final opinion is: Though populated with cardboard characters, this fast-paced thriller will likely give audiences goosebumps with high tension, robust action sequences and a solid lead performance...$TREAM IT

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Rated: PG-13 (for war-related action/violence and brief strong language)

Genre: Action/Adventure/Thriller

Runtime: 1 hour 31 minutes

Directed By: Aaron Schneider