Down Periscope
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bruce Dern, Harry Dean Stanton, Kelsey Grammer, Lauren Holly, Rob SchneiderBrand: Fox
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 92 minutes
Published: 2004-02-01
DVD Release Date: 2004-02-03
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Fox Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Down Periscope
Movie Review: Highly amusing nautical comedy
Summary: 5 Stars
I had been told that this screwball naval comedy included every submarine film cliche known to man, and noted that it had not been a particularly huge hit when it came out ten years ago. But as the hero was played by Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) I thought it would be worth picking up a pre-viewed copy to throw into my computer drive to enliven the last 90 minutes of a four-hour train journey.
In the event this film was vastly better than I had expected and the other passengers must have wondered what I was laughing at.
Grammer plays Lieutenant Commander Tom Dodge, a highly talented but utterly unconventional submarine officer whose sense of humour and far from by-the-book attitudes have placed him in grave danger of being passed over for command of his own boat. The film opens with a fierce debate at a promotion board,at which Rear Admiral Graham (Bruce Dern) who has taken a particular dislike to Dodge, argues that he is too maverick a personality to be trusted with command of a nuclear submarine.
But there is a compromise on offer. Graham's superior, Vice Admiral Winslow (Rip Torn) who is not quite so prejudiced against unconventional officers if they get the job done, has noticed that the former Soviet Union is selling off old diesel summarines in job lots to tin-pot unstable countries like Iran and Iraq. (Quite a prescient point given that this film was made five years before 9/11).
Admiral Winslow wants to test the possibility that the ultra-sophisticated high tech units deployed to defend the US coast against equally sophisticated attackers might make mistakes if faced with a much lower tech but crafty opponent - particularly if the enemy captain is highly unconventional or, in his words "a pirate."
So they give Dodge command of an ancient rustbucket of a diesel submarine called "Stingray" and invite him to see if he can get past all the much better equipped defenders of two key naval bases.
Admiral Winslow has a soft spot for Dodge, and gives him a green light to ignore the rules the way a real rogue attacker would; Admiral Graham is determined to humiliate him and does his best to make the Stingray's task "Mission Impossible." He starts by assigning Dodge a "crew from hell" of oddballs and misfits. These include a mad martinet, Martin Pascal (Rod Schneider) as his XO, and Lieutenant Emily Lake, (Lauren Holly), the first woman ever to serve as diving officer on a US submarine but who has no previous experience outside a simulator. Almost all of the crew have a combination of strengths and weaknesses - for example the sonarman, nicknamed "Sonar" (Harland Williams) has absurdly good hearing but is a very odd character and rather too prone to saying what he thinks. (Fortunately for the Stingray, Sonar's last captain got rid of him despite his enormous skill at the job because he thought Sonar was a security risk). Other members of the misfit crew are played by Harry Dean Stanton, Ken Hudson Campbell, Toby Huss, Duane Martin, Jonathan Penner, and Bradford Tatum, and they work together brilliantly - the cast obviously had a lot of fun making this.
Tom Dodge has to weld his peculiar crew into a team and take on an opposition which is determined not to give him an even break. He tries every trick that's not in the book to get past them ...
Apart from the crew of Stingray and the two admirals, one other performance of note in the film is given by William H Macy as Captain Knox of the USS Orlando, which was Tom Dodge's last sub before being given command of the Stingray. The Stingray keeps running into the Orlando and having to get past her on her way to the objectives of the exercise. Macy gives a brilliantly understated performance as a competent but unimaginative officer who has to display great reserves of self-control as he keeps falling foul of Dodge's maverick tricks. But you have to feel sympathy for Captain Knox as he holds on to his professionalism - something at which Admiral Graham is rather less successful ...
There are a fair number of things in this film which could only ever happen in Hollywood and not in real life, but although it is very funny and silly, you can suspend your disbelief most of the time.
I found this film laugh-out-loud funny and srongly recommend it.
P.S. Don't turn your DVD player off as soon as the credits start to roll - there is an amusing comic video clip accompanying the credits and cast list which is worth watching and listening to. It shows Kelsey Grammer as Dodge peering through the periscope at various cast members including himself (double take), Annie Talbot in her underwear, and some highly musical "singing sailors" who I think are actually pop stars, dancing around the deck of the Stingray.
Summary of Down Periscope
Kelsey Grammer sails from TV's "Frasier" to the big screen in this screwball comedy co-starring Lauren Holly and Rip Torn. Veteran skipper John Dodge (Grammer) will never be a textbook officer, but he's a brilliant seaman who's always wanted to command a nuclear submarine. Unfortunately, Admiral Graham (Bruce Dern) would rather sink the fleet than give Dodge his own boat. So Dodge is given the helm of a diesel-powered WW2 sub crewed by a collection of maladjusted, mistake-prone misfits. Then he's tagged "the enemy" in a crucial war game, and ordered to take on the U.S. Navy's best. Batten down the hatches for unstoppable hilarity that takes 200 years of naval tradition¿and throws it all overboard!Similar DVD Movies
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