This is a film about how obsession over revenge actually can work out pretty well. In a way the film’s overall message is quite a bit different than you’d expect since you’d figure that the mission would really fail to show that this wasn’t the way to go. It’s a pretty solid movie all in all with strong writing to keep you engaged.

The movie starts with Jim being celebrated by the crew and looking forward to many adventures as their captain. Unfortunately the celebration has barely concluded when he is told by exec that his ship is being given over to a guy named Richardson. Richardson’s own ship had been sunk about a year ago in the Bungo Straits where the Japanese have been successfully dominating every match. The U.S. has clear orders to avoid that area now but Richardson doesn’t care. He’s going to avenge his crew whatever it takes. Jim is certainly not pleased with how the lives of his crew are now being risked, but what can he do about it?

This film is fairly old school so everyone goes by the book and tries not to rock the boat much. That can be a bit annoying as Jim sees Richardson breaking the rules left and right but doesn’t really do anything about it. He sees the chain of command as not being something to jump over. So for example, when he notices Richardson going for the Bungo Straits, Jim will confront him about it privately. When the men on the ship ask about this, he just tells them to mind their business and keep it moving.

Jim’s doing his best to make sure the ship doesn’t devolve into chaos and that nothing crazy happens but I would say it happens at a rather huge cost. I don’t think keeping the men in the dark is the right answer. Jim’s almost compensating too hard to really show that he’s not going to try and take the ship back by force. It takes Richardson being really sick for Jim to really do anything.

Like I said in the intro though, Richardson’s plan actually works out fairly well. Yes, the heroes do take some big shots and have casualties. They almost could have all been destroyed but at the end of the day they stopped the Japanese threat that was sinking many shots. Richardson’s crew was able to pull off the bow shot when it counted despite this usually being a last resort technique. So you could say that Jim really trained them well.

I still think Jim should have been straight with the crew though. As for Richardson, he was also hiding things a whole lot. The fact that he refused to fight the first Japanese sub and let them get away just so he could go through with his mission was also pretty rough. Ultimately it works out pretty well but you never know if that one sub you avoided could go on to murder a bunch of people. It’s a high stakes bet with other people’s lives.

Ultimately Richardson’s story ends in a way you would expect because otherwise with the amount of rules he broke, things probably wouldn’t go great there. Results aren’t often enough to make up for the fact that you’ve broken orders, particularly in the army and the navy where these things are put as a premium. If you break them then the whole system starts to fall apart after all.

So there’s a good amount of tension here and the film does go into great detail about what a submarine fight is like. We see how you have to maneuver each torpedo and set the coordinates before firing. The precise angle to lower the ship while firing to do the bow shot, etc. Fans of submarine processes will get a particular kick out of it. It’s perhaps a bit more detail than I really needed but I wouldn’t say it ever drags the film on too long or anything like that.

The writing is always really good as you would expect for an old time film like this. The characters all talk like professionals and the dialogue exchanges are always really good. While we only have two main characters, there are still a number of sailors who get dialogue and show up from time to time. They help to move the plot around even without being individually important to what’s going on. It helps to make the submarine feel alive with the world building.

I also like that the Japanese aren’t just sitting around waiting to get blown up. We see them trying mental warfare tactics midway through the film where they deliver a message in English to taunt the main characters with how many ships have been sunk and also calling out their names to show that they know a lot. They have been doing well in the Bungo Straits after all so it makes sense that they wouldn’t just be taken out so easily.

If there is any plot armor or convenience here, it’s that I have a tough time believing so many people survived the initial explosion in the first scene. When Richardson’s ship is blown up, we see a number of people on rafts hanging on. We can assume a lot of them died later on from shock and injury since Richardson keeps referring to his crew as dead and it sounds like all of them didn’t make it except for him. Still doesn’t really answer how they survived an exploding ship in the water though, that just seems incredibly unlikely especially while the enemy ships were still around and this was in the middle of the Bungo Strait.

Overall, Run Silent, Run Deep is a pretty good movie. The story itself is fairly straight forward and as the movie is pretty short. The pacing is on point though and it keeps your attention the whole way. Being on a ship/submarine can make for a pretty good background. There isn’t a lot of scenery but it also helps to keep the tension up since there is really no escape. When an enemy ship shows up you generally have to fight and if you lose then you lose your life. So the stakes are definitely pretty high there unless you are half sub and can just run away but then the whole crew gives you heat for that. It’s all about the army politics and that’s always fun.

Overall 7/10