Captain's Faith In 'Greyhound' Calms The Storm
Tom Hanks as Ernest Krause in “Greyhound.” Courtesy of Sony Pictures.
(REVIEW) Captain Ernest Krause kneels at the bedside of his bunk on the Greyhound in a simple white shirt, his dog tags and military-standard slacks.
He says a simple prayer: “Dear Lord, let your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me.” He stands, moves to the sink and splashes water on his face. He finishes dressing in his uniform, lacing his dress shoes and buttoning his shirt.
He has a small card tucked at the edge of his mirror that reads “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8.”
Apple TV Plus’s newest movie “Greyhound” was based on true events during World War II, following Allied cargo ships that had to cross an area called the “Black Pit”—in the stretch of the Atlantic from America to Great Britain—to deliver supplies to troops. This area was particularly treacherous because there was no air cover, making ships much more vulnerable to U-Boat attacks.
Tom Hanks adapted the screenplay from the 1955 novel “The Good Shepherd,” which was written as a nautical drama about WWII by C.S. Forester. The novel is based on the Atlantic warfront after Pearl Harbor, and introduces Krause as its hero.
Hanks stars as Krause and delivers a predictably enjoyable performance. It’s Krause’s first time crossing the Black Pit, and he is bombarded with the personal and national duty to get his ship and others in the convoy across safely. In doing so, he runs himself ragged and makes exhaustion a primary enemy—he doesn’t eat or sleep during the 48-hour period in which the boat crosses the Black Pit. The seas are high and tumultuous. The Germans—calling themselves Grey Wolf—are on the prowl.
But the presence of well-rounded, human characters is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it: Krause is on his feet for so long that they start to bleed, one of the plates containing his untouched meal shatters on the ground, he downs mugs of coffee with increasing frequency. These things happen primarily in the background, overshadowed by the threat of Nazi U-Boat attacks and an overwhelming amount of military code talk.
In fact, of the movie’s 91-minute runtime, all but the first and last 10 minutes are devoted to heavy, unrelenting action, as the only story is the Greyhound’s crossing of the Black Pit.
Allied forces retaliate against German U-Boats. Courtesy of Sony Pictures.
For those who may have a slight aversion to warfare dramas (like me), “Greyhound” threatens to run stale. It could easily join the ranks of other mediocre, standard-fare World War II movies—referred to occasionally as “Dad cinema.”
But what makes it stand out is Krause’s religious devotion.
He prays at both the beginning and end of the movie, providing faithful bookends for the story. He prays silently before every meal he doesn’t eat.
And the only moments of solace in the middle of the action are moments when Krause stands on the ship and looks out a porthole at the roiling sea. In these moments, he quotes the Bible: from Proverbs 3:6 to Matthew 10:16. When three men on the Greyhound die after a U-boat attack, he reads from Revelation at their memorial.
This steadfast faith is the characteristic that makes Krause most human, and the moments in which he shows it give the movie more even pacing and quiet reflection.
In these moments, I wasn’t thinking of the war or the threat against Krause and his men—I was thinking of the story in which Jesus calms the storm for the disciples.
The story, which is told in all of the Gospels but John, takes place as Jesus and the disciples are crossing the Sea of Galilee, and a storm arises while Jesus is sleeping.
The disciples panic, and wake Jesus up to tell him they’re going to die. What Jesus does, as relayed in Mark 4:39, is nothing short of a miracle: “And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”
There are several little lessons to be found in this story, but the one that always stuck out to me was that the boat was never in any real danger. If the disciples had maintained their faith, there was no reason to worry. Jesus was always going to protect them.
The same message this Gospel story is meant to teach Christians is the same one found in Hebrews, and the same one that Krause uses to keep himself steady in the midst of his “storm”: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
It seems to be the reason why Krause is able to withstand the Germans, the sea and his own physical limitations. And that makes a better story than any number of powerful, imposing Navy warcraft ever will.
“Greyhound” is streaming exclusively on Apple TV Plus.
Jillian Cheney is a Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged who loves consuming good culture and writing about it. She also reports on American Protestantism and Evangelical Christianity. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.