What a waste of my time!!!

People are voting emotionally.

Absolutely brilliant

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It's 1942. Old British cruise liner Laconia captained by Sharp (Brian Cox) is transporting 1800 Italian prisoners to Liverpool. They are guarded by cruel Polish guards. There are many civilians including mysterious Hilda Smith (Franka Potente) with a baby who is befriended by Third officer Mortimer. They are torpedoed by a German U-boat whose captain Hartenstein decides to rescue the survivors risking his own boat. As more ships and U-boats join in the rescue, an American plane from Ascension attack.This is a little-known much-ignored story from WWII. It is an interesting story but the movie is too scattered and too long. I imagine this would be a great U-boat story in the vein of Das Boot. A three hour mini-series is too long and the movie has relatively low tension. Also the movie makes the American bombing a mistake by a young crew rather than a deliberate action. This seems like an excuse more than a realistic assessment.

1. The movie focuses on one of a few moments when Germans and Italians could claim moral superiority over Allies during the IIWW. What the movie makers forget and do not show on purpose is why the "heroic" Uboot commander is hunting British merchant ship. He is hunting it in name of no less than Adolf Hitler. The "heroic" crew of Uboot witnessed treatment of (mostly Polish) slaves in Germany and in French ports, with high probability they enjoyed the services of sexual slaves (in 1939-1941 mostly French and Polish) in Kriegsmarine brothels, they used goods stolen from Jews and Poles etc. 2. The villains of the movie are Polish soldiers, who escort Italians. Again it remains unclear where those people come from. It is simple: after fighting in Poland, they left Poland, via Hungary got to France to fight Germans, then some of them fought in Narvik (as a Polish unit), got back to Britain and went to Africa to fight Rommel. Their families got executed and enslaved (Germans executed 15 000 Poles in one place called Piasnica in 1939-40 to name an example). Their sons got sent as slaves to Germany (approx 2 million Polish slaves), their daughters raped. They could nourish certain hate against Axis soldiers. 3.It remains to wait for a movie about Sonderkommando Jewish prisoners, Russian kapos in KZ and heroic SS-men who protect KZ-prisoners from them. There could be one such case - so the movie will be based on facts.It is all about choosing which facts are to be depicted. 4. To put it short: it is an abominable dance on graves because not a minute is devoted to the context of the story.5. The captain of Laconia deserves certain respect but he fought for Nazi Deutschland. Polish, Belorussian, Russian peasants who risked their lives as guerilla fighters had more courage than this idealized Uboot captain. They knew their survival chances were non-existent but they refused to comply.

This documentary - drama was a great thing to show to the main public. The idea of being noble and humane in the midst of a war is quite unusual and it should have been stressed out more in order to make humans aware in such a way. This kind of situations are extraordinary, and they happen only occasionally, under special circumstances. I hope more movies would be made in such honorable manners to encourage people of this planet to be just like this or better. The media has this power, and I wish it was used more in this way! Thank you for making this movie, I'd rate it min. 7,5 if I was asked. And all this nationality preferences and it's discredits are just what the war is all about, I sincerely hope we soon become what we pretend to be. Big respect for the captain and I hope we aspire to such deeds!

The film did get overly sentimental at times and there were some unnecessary plot digressions that served only as filler, but overall, a moving portrayal of actual events.When the American bomber goes in and bombs a submarine crowded with people on deck and displaying a large red cross, that is an accurate retelling of what actually happened. Similarly, a despicable Nazi U-Boat commander actually did turn out to be a caring man who disobeyed orders and jeopardised his own safety to rescue all those survivors of a boat that he had targeted legitimately. Just as in real life, he was eventually forced to abandon them to their fate because he was attacked by the Americans. Several other U-Boats did also join in the operation.In reality, around half the survivors eventually died before they eventually reached safety.