The Sinking of the Laconia war movie

The Sinking of the Laconia (2010, United Kingdom)

Categories: navy movies submarine movies

The Sinking of the Laconia

Director: Uwe Janson

Czas: 170 minut

Laguages: English / German

war movies infoAdam 'Frey' Barczynski
2024-04-07 / 1970-01-01

British troop ship is torpedoed on Atlantic Ocean, but when German captain realizes that there were prisoners and women on board he decides to start a rescue mission. The problem is he can’t rescue them all by himself.

1942, Atlantic Ocean, west of Africa. Laconia, an old British cruise liner turned into troop ship, leaves South Africa and takes course on Liverpool. Aboard Laconia there is almost 2000 Italian prisoners, armed guards and civilian passengers (many of them women). Unescorted and armed only with few obsolete guns the ship is an easy target for the enemy. German submarine U-156 spots the ship from long distance and closes up to inspect if it is possible target. When Germans notice the guns they are sure it is valid target and suspect it is full of British soldiers. Torpedoes damage the Laconia badly and the captain gives the order to abandon the ship. U-156 surfaces to check if there are any officers among the survivors. When German captain realizes that most of the castaways on the lifeboats are women he decides to do the right thing and starts the rescue operation. But the problem is there is no way he can help all of them, so captain Hartenstein has to make some tough decisions. He sends an open message in English requesting any help from Allies for the survivors and ensuring that any ship helping the people from Laconia will not be attacked. German headquarters realize how difficult the situation is, but Allies have many doubts if they want to get involved.

British miniseries that tells the story of so called Laconia incident when German U-boat sunked British cruise liner and later captain Werner Hartenstein tried to rescue the survivors. Film is based on the real events that took place on the Atlantic Ocean in 1942. The production involved quite a lot of scenes filmed on the sea, apart from that there is a lot of low quality special effects and not very accurate interiors of U-boat. The strong point is historical accuracy and interesting script that shows not only the events aboard the ships, but also the politics behind it, just like in f.e. "Battle of River Plate".

Interesting plot that keeps the viewer involved, tensed atmosphere and the constant distrust between both sides that are trying to do the right thing, but they simply can’t forget that the war is still on.

Our rating

6.8

Film value

8 / 10

Realism factor

3 / 5

Adventure factor

2 / 5

Historical accuracy

4 / 5

2024-04-07

The Sinking of the Laconia full movie

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