I thought Greyhound was going to be released in theaters like all big films do, but this one was sold to Apple TV due to the Covid restrictions. The budget wasn't massive so at only $53 Million to make was actually cheap as films go these days. According to Apple the film grossed the same amount of revenue over the first weekend of it's release compared to other films that hit the theaters. Hanks mentioned in a recent interview that they were kind of stuck and were grateful for Apple stepping up and helping them. I can see this being the first of many going this route this year and maybe in the future even when the movie houses are open.
I don't have Apple TV but have watched this already as I have installed APK time on my smart television and have numerous television apps that I use including Netflix. The South African version of Netflix never had this so I was able to upgrade it to the USA version opening up and most likely doubling the choices. Greyhound is there as one of the new HD releases.If you can't find it there then I suggest Cyberflix or cat and mouse as they also have it.
Without ruining it too much it is about a Captains first assignment (Tom Hanks). His job is the safety of the merchant ships in the convoy crossing from America to the UK during the Second World War.
The problem is that there is a 4 day window that the convoy has no air cover as the planes back then had a limited range due to fuel. What lies in the middle of the Atlantic ocean out of reach is the German U boats also known as the Wolfpack.
What i like about hanks and his war films is he tends to get many things right and he wrote this screen play for the film. Originally based on the book called The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester it recounts one sea crossing highlighting it was no picnic.
Honestly this is a part of the war that has never taken many mentions up until now and yet it was so important. I don't know what was more dangerous landing on the beaches in Normandy or waiting to be torpedoed on a ship in the middle of nowhere.
You can see by these figures what a problem the U boat became as it all started off fairly slowly. The USA joined the war only in 1941 after Pearl Harbour so it is rather kind of the Germans to stop and release boats in the first few years. These are just the North Atlantic Crossing figures on record for civilian ships.
1939 - 7 ships were stopped and later released by the Germans.
1940 - 1 ship also stopped and released.
1941 - 11 ships all sunk. 8 by torpedo and 168 dead with one POW.
1942 - 65 ships attacked with 57 sunk and 8 damaged by torpedo.
1943 - 63 ships attacked with 37 sunk by torpedo and some unknown as could
have been a floating mine as well.
1944 - 17 ships sunk with 3 by torpedo.
1945 - 10 ships sunk with 3 by torpedo.
In total 1554 ships were sunk during the war with the US Merchant Marine suffering the most. Over 30 000 merchant marine men lost their lives which is a higher proportion of any other section during the war.
The Germans had 1162 U Boats built during the war of which 632 were lost at sea. In the beginning the Germans had it all their own way and only technology and different tactics turned the tide the other way. Still The film will give you an idea of how bad it really was.