Product Details

• Actors: Armand Assante, Donald Sutherland, Alex Jennings, Chris Bauer, Gerry Becker
• Directors: John Gray
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Turner Home Ent
• VHS Release Date: May 16, 2000
• Run Time: 94 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00002E24F
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #316 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Produced for Turner Network Television and originally broadcast in the summer of 1999, The Hunley is a straightforward, engrossing historical drama focusing on a little-known chapter of the Civil War: the introduction of the submarine into American naval warfare off the shore of war-torn Charleston, South Carolina, in 1864. Writer-director John Gray had previously helmed the 1998 TV movie The Day Lincoln Was Shot, and he has a knack for capturing the Civil War era with a heightened sense of authenticity, allowing for the dramatic license of mainstream television. Armand Assante plays Lieutenant Dixon, a traumatized soldier and grieving widower with just the right mixture of bravado and nihilism to skipper the C.S.S. Hunley--essentially an iron boiler cobbled into a hand-powered submersible weapon--with a volunteer crew of nine men who propel the crude sub in an effort to break the Union's coastal blockade. Donald Sutherland is superbly cast as Dixon's Confederate commander, General Beauregard, and the film's best scenes are those between Assante and Sutherland, playing two weary warriors with one final chance for victory. Otherwise, this is a very conventional film made with integrity but no particular flair, faithfully adhering to historical fact while establishing a solid supporting cast. Assante is guilty of moderate overacting, but he compensates with enough charisma to make his ill-fated command dramatically involving. Most effective is the sense of sheer bravery in the pioneering effort to prove the Hunley as a viable tool of war; the final scene within the sub is both haunting and dramatically intense. (Historical note: The C.S.S. Hunley--named after the drowned captain of a previous test vessel--was discovered intact off the coast of Charleston in 1995; efforts were later made to raise and restore this relic of naval history.) --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Confederate Naval History Revisited, January 5, 2000

By A Customer

Being a native of South Carolina, I was deeply touched by this film largely about a chapter in S.C.'s history during the Civil War. It was an accurate depiction of the facts as they related to the Union blockades, and the subsequent effects that have been diligently recorded by historians, of those blockades. The Hunley was indeed a remarkable fete of engineering for the time, and I am proud of fact that it was moored in my native state. Thank you for making a film that did not make Southerners out to be a bunch of dirty, illiterate losers, like most films have in the past. I appreciate the lack of stereotyping involved in the telling of this historical drama. As always, Donald Sutherland did a magnificent job of portraying Gen.Beauregard. Armand Assante did an adequate job as Lt.Dixon; however his southern accent tended to drift into something else. Perhaps his Odyseus accent. This is a film, however, that is well worth any good southerner's time to watch; and even if you're not southern, but a Civil War history buff, you will appreciate the historical relevance of this remarkable story.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A true-life tale of bravery beyond the call of duty, September 1, 2001

By	Stogie Chomper - See all my reviews

I purchased and watched "The Hunley" to increase my knowledge of this Confederate submarine and her brave crew. I have been following the actual excavation of the Hunley since it was recovered from the silt of Charleston Bay, and the remains of its crew, including Lt. George E Dixon, have now been found. Right where Dixon's pocket used to be, they found the gold coin given to him by his sweetheart, the coin that stopped a bullet and saved his life at Shiloh, a real event that is presented in the film.

The movie of the Hunley necessarily had to add dramatic and fictional elements, and for the most part, they were enjoyable. The crew includes an angry Irishman who likes to fight, an Englishman who doesn't, and a groom who misses his wife. As comic relief perhaps, a young Confederate soldier begs to join the crew and tries to impress Dixon and Beauregard by regularly jumping into the sea fully dressed and splashing about. He is finally accepted.

Why would a third crew attempt to man the Hunley when two previous crews drowned? The film answers that by showing the increasing desperation of the residents of Charleston as offshore Union battleships regularly bombard the blockaded city. The only hope of victory over the overwhelming opposing force is to strike an effective blow against the Yankee Navy, and the Hunley does it, sinking the USS Housatonic with a spear-mounted torpedo. The sub, however, never returned to port, ending the hope for victory. The film speculates as to what might have happened following the Hunley's first and last mission.

Armand Assante is a fine actor, and does a credible job portraying the determined George E Dixon. However, Lt. George E Dixon, was much younger (in his early 20s), was blonde and over six feet tall. Knowing that fact did not help me to appreciate Assante's portrayal, as I like authenticity.

At the end of the film I felt both sadness and admiration for the lost crew of the Hunley. Bravery and valor are not always rewarded with success or fame, but at last the crew has come home for burial. God bless them.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Historically accurate, for the most part., October 22, 1999

By	Charlie Pleasants ([e-mail]) (Raleigh, North Carolina) - See all my reviews

Historically accurate, for the most part.For once a Civil War movie that does not vilify the South. These were brave men, pioneers in naval warfare defending their homeland. Must see for Civil War Buffs,