A Glimpse of Hell (2001)

Best movie ever!

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I just saw this for the first time last night on a cable movie channel, and I was amazed to see that it was originally a TV-movie, which means a budget the tenth of what a feature would have cost. The production values looked like a studio had spent some fairly serious money to make it. Much more important, the tone kept me thinking of "A Few Good Men" from beginning to end. I agree with all the good things other reviewers have written, and rate it one notch higher at eight.If I have a quibble, it's with the title, which, thanks to IMDb, I now know is the title of the book the film's based on. It refers to a certain scene and God knows it's appropriate, but I might never have clicked the remote to record it if the menu hadn't had a sentence telling me it was about the USS Iowa incident. Otherwise, I would have thought it was about a concentration camp, a Mexican prison, or, worst of all, some woman's especially awful marriage on Lifetime. There's some discussion on the message board about the word "hell" in the title, referring to that scene, but it also occurred to me that, like "Fair Game" did with the Valerie Plame case, it could also refer to what The Power Structure will put you through if you stand up to it.

I was on shore duty at the time of the Iowa disaster and I remember thinking something stank about blaming the turret 2 explosion on an allegedly suicidal, allegedly homosexual gunner's mate. The true cause fell on the shoulders of the Reagan Administration's lust for antiquated platforms (the battleship went out with Burma Shave signs back in the early 50's) while caught up in their irrational enthusiasm for a 600-ship Navy (which never materialized, incidentally). The then recently-elected George Bush would wisely decommission these dinosaurs. The true blame for the turret 2 disaster was old unstable and overloaded powder. The shame the Navy has to live with is the cover-up that followed. A Glimpse of Hell is a superior TV movie that probably deserved to be produced as a major motion picture. The performances are very good (James Caan and Daniel Roebuck are excellent)--- my only minor gripe is the interior shots of the 50-year old Iowa look phony (Roebuck has a stateroom as an E-6? I doubt it guys... and the boat would've been home to cockroaches the size of Buicks) and the ubiquitous sounds of the 1MC I recall are missing. The actual explosion and special effects are well done. Now if only I could only get the A&E Channel to cut back on commercials every 92 seconds...

Why does it take years after an event for the media to gain the courage to film an actual event with all its warts? The difficulty this guy had in even getting this mildly white-washed film made is witness to how sensitive we are in this country to even MILDLY criticizing our corrupt government. The acting by James Caan is remarkable, as he has to portray a good ol boy captain, striving to be an admiral, was well as a self-important, lazy Navy officer, imposing no discipline on his troops, nor even overseeing properly the supplying of his ship (which might have saved a few of the 40+ lives). Yet, Caan also portrays his good side (which we all have), making him keep his lips tightly closed as he tries to walk the line between truth and completely throwing in with the whitewash of the Navy investigative committee. As if the higher-ups in government don't know that no group can truthfully investigate itself. I find it puzzling that this was a Made for TV movie, instead of for the big screen. Having worked as a NASA contractor throughout its initial coverups and waiving of the O-rings preceding the Challenger debacle, I find the disingeniousness attempts by the NASA PMs presetly at work very similar to the nefarious activities by the Navy big wheels in this movie. Quite instructional for any idealist young patriot, and I mean that in the best sense.

As a Navy veteran, I can truthfully say I was mightily impressed by the quality of this movie as well as its message. The producers seemed like they genuinely cared about the welfare of the ordinary sailors who man ships such as the Iowa. The fact that the Navy falsely implicated one of these sailors, who was no longer alive to defend himself, is appalling in and of itself. The fact that FX and the people who made this movie attempted to set the record straight, speaks glowingly about the state of movie-making these days.Well worth watching.