Glimpse Of Hell, A

The storyline is promising: the true-life events surrounding the story of the fatal explosion aboard the USS Iowa Battleship in 1989. A young officer (Robert Sean Leonard) is put in charge of one of the ship's three gun turrets, which ignites in a horrible misfire during an exercise and a controversial investigation and trial ensues. It's a compelling story, but not more so than an average episode of "Jag." The Captain (James Caan)'s supposedly inspiring speech to his men is interesting, but probably less dramatic than some of his lines in Brian's Song years ago: "Today's been the worst day of my life. Not only as a soldier, but as a human being. A commander is supposed to lose men in the line of fire. But like this? There's no sense to it. There's no higher purpose. There's no grand meaning. But I do know that we have to, uh -- we have to go on. The best thing we can do for those men is to do our duty..." With 85 minutes of footage and absolutely no extras, it's over before you know it. As a movie watcher, you have to get over this one . . . and just go on. [Fox Home Video / Doug Van Pelt]

Ratings:
Obscenities 6
Graphic Violence 7
Nude Scenes 0
% spiritual relevancy 33

This DVD review wasn't printed in ISSUE 98 of HM Magazine, and thus is an "online exclusive."

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