When a dive-related film is made by a professional studio, the difference shows.
This is a good example of intelligent editing together of actuality with historic footage, movie clips, sound effects and period music to produce something that's very watchable.
The only pity is that, because it's all based around deep wreck dives, there is not that much to see under water, especially on the big dive itself - though it's not without incident.
US technical diver Rob Lalumiere's solo bid to lay a plaque on USS Cooper's deck at 193m was a world-record wreck dive back in May, 2005. Lalumiere comes over as a charismatic leader with a touch of Hollywood about him, and the dive, in Leyte in the Philippines, was movingly observed topside by Hank Wagener, a crewman who survived the destroyer's sinking 61 years before.
The preparations, and the build-up dives to two deep Japanese destroyers and an intact Lockheed PV-1 bomber, are interspersed with the reminiscences of Wagener and of Richard Sementelli, a gunner on sister-destroyer the Allen M Sumner.
The US destroyers, known as "tin cans" because of their thin armour, and without air cover, were sitting ducks when Japanese destroyers sent in torpedoes on a moonlit night.
This film is a good example of how to recapture life aboard a vessel that was destined to become a wreck, with the director steering it deftly away from over-sentimentality.
Steve Weinman
Bigfoot Entertainment
www.bigfoot.com
DVD, 70min, 15.95 euros
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