To interfere with the course of history (the carrier's air wing can make instant teriyaki of the six Japanese carriers) or to let events take their known and disastrous course. Period.) The dilemma facing Douglas, of course, is a classic time-travel conundrum. Without a word, this talented actor's face does a comical double-take when introduced to the ship's executive officer who just happens to be black (in 1941 a black navy man could only serve as a steward in the officers mess. to order trailing F-14 Tomcats to "splash" the "enemy." Durning and Ross are rescued. A brace of Japanese Zeroes sink the yacht, killing two passengers which then prompts the carrier C.O. senator, played by one of Hollywood's deservedly decorated war heroes, Charles Durning, is enjoying his yacht, also near Pearl, while dictating to his lovely secretary, Katharine Ross. A mysterious and never explained weather phenomenon grips the mighty floating air base and to the unfolding amazement of captain, officers and crew dawns the realization that the Nimitz in sailing not that far from Pearl Harbor on 6 December 1941. On board as some sort of efficiency consultant is a young Martin Sheen, not yet ready for the West Wing. Now that's cooperation! Kirk Douglas skippers the supercarrier which is on Pacific Fleet maneuvers. And few movies have gotten more assistance than the producer, director and cast of "The Final Countdown," now available on DVD,a sci-fi recruiting spectacular that features - on loan at taxpayer expense - the huge carrier U.S.S. But when you need lots of planes and ships, you gotta have official help. Bilko worked (officially but not actually) for me when I was an Army officer. Bilko," a film portraying what some noncoms do to earn extra income (trust me, it's a true story: a real Sgt. Two examples - both true stories that the Pentagon didn't want to support - are "Men of Honor" reflecting the epidemic racism of the not-that-long-ago Navy and "Sgt. If the story doesn't require major air or naval assets, a script disapproved of by the top brass can be convincingly brought to the screen.
#The final countdown movie movie#
At its best, it's a good study in style and pacing.Making a military movie without official cooperation can be difficult. At the least, it's an entertaining story. But after you catch this flick on the tube for the second or third time, pay attention to the enlisted pukes doing their jobs - to me, they're the real stars. The story - revealed by plenty of other comments here - though implausible, is still capable of holding one's interest. performed, perhaps not brilliantly, but serviceably in a film that certainly was more plot-driven than character-focused. The "name-actor" ensemble of Kirk Douglas et al. (Compare this film's or /Top Gun/'s exteriors of aircraft with, say, /Air Force One/, and you'll see what I mean. To be sure, both movies relied to some extent on stock footage of naval-aviation ops, but as with /Top Gun/, this film's flying was spectacular - and, in the last of the years before CGI took hold, REAL. The aerial sequences set a standard that wouldn't be touched until /Top Gun/ hit the screen. And that's a little detail that's done right so seldom that I hardly notice anymore that I'm deliberately overlooking it. The people who spoke this dialogue definitely weren't Screen Actors Guild types they looked and sounded pretty much like sailors I've known. "If you need to know, you'll be told," replies the Chief Master-at-Arms curtly. Here's an example: In a brief scene that probably barely survived the final cut, there's interaction among some sailors: "Christ, Chief, all we wanna know is what's going on," asserts one mildly exasperated rating. If any were, Don Taylor and his second-unit directorial crew got excellent small performances from them. To this day I wonder which, if any, sailors and Marines I saw were actual service people. I mean that as high praise: Where lots of military movies (and plenty of recruiting commercials) overdo the martial aspects of their characters with a gung-ho Sergeant Rock style, the byplay in this movie provided glimpses of the the Navy (and the Marine Corps too, God bless 'em), honestly and simply, as people taking pride in a demanding, sacrificial profession. And that's entirely appropriate the film is, among other things, a love letter to the modern Navy.
I first saw this film when I was right out of high school, and I wasn't surprised to see the lobby-card poster hanging in a Navy recruiter's office a few months later when I dropped by.
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