I diavoli del mare

You'd have thought with the concept of total war it might have given film producers more scope to make a film that doesn't revolve around this cliché: a British woman is romantically involved with an American serviceman and a Brit and both male characters have to work together on an extremely dangerous mission in which either only one of them or neither of them will come back . Stop me if you've seen this type of movie before . In the film producers defence they can claim that women won't instinctively feel the need to watch war films hence they need an angle , usually a love triangle , to sell a film to the widest possible audience

HELL BOATS continues this cliché and brings many other clichés to the party . Being a film that features the Royal Navy it means they have to be led by an American in order to boost its box office stateside . As can be expected the best looking member of the cast is the American as well as being the bravest member on the suicide mission . Guns when fired by the good guys never run out of ammo while Germans never seem to be able to shoot straight etc etc

In it self there's nothing fundamentally bad about HELL BOATS . The problem lies that it's a victim of film studios churning out one war film after another which all use the same type of premise and plotting and nothing in this movie sets it apart from its peers . It's not helped either that channel 5 broadcast this movie then followed it up with the brilliantly cynical THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN immediately afterwards