You won't be disappointed!

Amateur movie with Big budget

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

"Gray Lady Down" is a poor film. A fine cast of character actors are being wasted with mediocre material. Charlton Heston was slightly past his best in terms of box office appeal but his fans might enjoy this film. Look out for a young pre-Superman Christopher Reeve in a small role. "Gray Lady Down" was one of his first films. We have been here before, regarding the plot. There are no fresh twists or surprises of any kind. Forgettable fare.

Bad acting all round here - amazing what Charlton Heston and Ned Beatty descended to to make a movie. Dumb story and anything but "gripping" as the description says. Unfortunately just another flavor of 70s disaster movies in the same vein of Posiedon Adventure, Towering Inferno and Earthquake. I predicted the end of this movie about 20 minutes in and was right on the money! Don't waste the time unless you really like naval movies that seriously stretch the imagination about how sea rescues really work or if you just have to see Charlton Heston in another mediocre role just to say you've seen them all. Special effects aren't bad given the era.

A better-than-average disaster movie, due mostly to the absence of any ridiculous scenes. (There are no overweight older Jewish women who won swimming medals many years ago trying to reach the sub, for example.)On the other hand, Ronnie Cox as the first officer goes to pieces very quickly and you wonder why the Navy ever thought he'd be able to command a sub of his own. Also, you've got to ponder the initial collision. The sub's crew basically just lets a freighter in open water run them down, not even noticing that the freighter is in the area until it's too late to do anything about it. Kind of makes you wonder.Heston is restrained in his role, which works out pretty well. Everybody else does a good job (except for Cox) and the special FX are average for the time.Definitely worth watching.

"Gray Lady Down", which bears very little resemblance to the novel it was based on, is a nice, entertaining action thriller that holds up well today in contrast to today's action films because it's cloaked with a realism and plausibility that today's filmmakers seem determined to avoid like the plague.