SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

shakercoola Lots of derring-do, espionage, exotic locations, debonair, and action and thrills. A superb cast of actors and a great supporting cast too. Gregory Peck, David Niven & Roger Moore were good pals off-screen and they have great chemistry on. It's a film based on true events and real ex-Servicemen - British special operations during World War II, Operation Postmaster (1942) and Operation Creek (1943) - though it combines them both into one single story.

TheLittleSongbird While it is a long way from a terrible film, 'The Sea Wolves' was a disappointment considering the talented cast and that the story could have been a really good one if executed well.Starting with the good things about it, the best asset of 'The Sea Wolves' is the climax, which is sheer rousing excitement and the most riveting 'The Sea Wolves' gets. The locations also are quite nice and evoke a sense of atmosphere, the most professional the film looks by quite some margin. The direction has occasional verve, particularly towards in the climax and the build up to it.A couple of the performances are good. Best of the bunch is David Niven, who brings understated dignity to his role, while Patrick MacNee has fun with his and Barbara Kellerman is a gorgeously sensual but appropriately dangerous femme fatale.On the other hand, Gregory Peck (so brilliant in the likes of 'Roman Holiday' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird') is robotic and sleepwalks through his role. Roger Moore both over-compensates and slums it, trying too hard to be suave and such but coming over as cheesy and Trevor Howard's screen time is too short with a character that's severely underwritten and the dialogue awkward (a waste).Visually, only the locations impress. The photography, like most of the direction, is pedestrian and routine, and also looking like it would be out of date even in the late 70s-early 80s. The costumes, hairstyles and make-up mostly look cheap and noticeably anachronistic to the period.Can't say any better news about the music. The score doesn't fit at all and always at odds tonally, often setting a completely different mood to the storytelling with constant crying out for a darker edge. Even Matt Monro's marvellous singing can't stop the song (not a particularly good song to begin with) feeling so out of place and similarly ill-suited to the mood and the subject of the story.Dialogue is long-winded and stilted and the story only comes to life in the climax. The rest is dull and severely lacking in thrills or suspense, not helped by the unnecessary spy subplots which drags the film down and convolutes it as well.Overall, while the climax excites, the locations are nice and a few performances are good, the rest of 'The Sea Wolves' just didn't engage me. 4/10 Bethany Cox

verna-a The basic story is great and could have made an exciting film, but this is rather an inept production. I have never seen a greater gallery of distinguished British male actors in one film, but most of them are given very little to do. The only one to distinguish himself with his material is that underrated actor Patrick Allen. Unfortunately he's not on the screen for very long. Peck struggles to be a Brit, Niven is better but looking pretty awful at this stage of his life, Roger Moore is..well..Roger Moore which is just lovely but his stuff with the female spy is extraneous to the story and contributes to the film dragging out and becoming rather boring. It's the sort of film where you get up, go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea at any stage without worrying about what you're missing on screen. Overall there is a lack of quality and authenticity, and some aspects (eg the music, the special effects and the credits) are quite painful. The critical eye was clearly lacking in most facets of this production.

fred-houpt Oh, I don't know...such great actors stuck in such a stinky and crappy film. I can't imagine the private conversations between them. The good thing is that this film is based on a true story. The bad thing is that from my vantage point in 2012, it looks awful, cheesy, horribly edited, grating music, clumsy special effects. Things for me started off bad from just a casual glance at the photographs of Peck, Moore and Niven on the jacket of my DVD and even on the photo here at IMDb. I cannot recall a moment in this film when Niven and Moore dressed up like German naval officers. So, why have them depicted as such in the photos? Ridiculous.Gregory Peck, one of the finest actors ever, was there ever a miscasting mistake in his career worse than this one? Atticus Finch tries desperately to sound like a lord of the manor and it is painful to listen and watch. Some actors just should not attempt to sound British and the sad joke of Kevin Costner trying to be Robin Hood in his Yankee-English disaster....is the stuff of Hollywood jokes. So no, Peck should not have been cast as a British officer. He was, strangely enough, very powerful and frightening as the evil Dr. Mengele in "The Boys from Brazil". He pulled that role off with great effect. In Sea Wolves I was almost howling with displeasure.Roger Moore was apparently in between shooting two James Bond films and the Sea Wolves was the sandwich centrepiece. His debonair mannerisms were detracting. David Niven looked exasperated and embarrassed to be stuck in this clunker. Oh, the better days were way behind him. The great Trevor Howard is wasted in this film, his time on screen too short and the material just garbage.This is a film that should be remade and with a better script. And please, next time, don't include the scotch dowsing scene.....just such a sad sight to see good scotch wasted.....on such a dreadfully boring film.