Happy, and even somewhat proud, to be able to say that cinema in my home country underwent an incredibly evolution in the past two decades; - and cult/horror in a mere span of 10 years. In the 80s and 90s, it was impossible to gather proper funding or any other type of support for eccentric cinema in Belgium, so there only existed underground trash-classics, like "Rabid Grannies" or "Lucker the Necrophagous". It's only since 2014 that we have our first official slasher film (with "Welp"),since 2018 that we have our first zombie splatter film (with "Yummy"),and now we finally also have our very own historically inaccurate exploitation epos with "Torpedo".

"Torpedo" comes forth out of love and admiration for over-the-top "men on an impossible mission" movies, like "The Dirty Dozen", the Italian "Quel maledetto treno blindato" or - more recently - Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Bastards". Haters, and sourpusses altogether, discredit the genre because the films are 100% historically incorrect. But who cares, seriously, when they are so entertaining, exhilarating and imaginative.

During WWII, a group of Belgian resistance fighters are known as the Bad Eggs. They excel in pulling off suicide missions, but not so efficient when it comes to taking prisoners. The Nazis they capture usually lose their heads before able to release useful information to the allied troops. In '43 they are recruited for a bizarre mission to transport a shipment of uranium from Congo to the US in a confiscated German submarine. None of them ever set foot in a U-boat, they are forced to collaborate with a former Nazi as their captain, and the cross-Atlantic journey is full of enemy ships and death traps.

Evidently, "Torpedo" isn't without defaults, but it's primarily a praiseworthy accomplishment. Praiseworthy because debuting writer/director Sven Huybrechts delivers a visually striking film with a relatively small budget. He gathers a phenomenal (for Belgian standards) cast, collected impressive sets and scenery, and realized top-notch special effects. The script still contains slightly too much drama, like the flashbacks lead character Stan suffers from, but the flamboyant and deliberately insane highlights are stupendous. Stan shoots a plane out of the sky while the submarine is already diving is fantastic, the Nazis boarding the submarine assuming the crew are fellow Germans is quite suspenseful and the chemistry between the Belgian "bastards", with their juicy Antwerp accents, is often downright funny.

During the American Civil War, pugnacious Union General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell." By the end of World War II, Sherman's blasphemous anatomy of war achieved its ultimate impact with the detonation of two atomic bombs over Japan. Belgian writer & director Sven Huybrechts' gritty World War II submarine saga "Torpedo: U-235" depicts war as Sherman saw it. This outrageous, but unforgettable undersea epic doesn't overshadow director Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot" (1981) also known as "The Boat," the best World War II adventure opus about Hitler's U-boats. Nevertheless, not only does "Torpedo" rank as thoroughly sensational in a compelling way, but it also registers as a spine-tingling exercise in escapism that should appeal to anybody who craves maritime combat movies. Huybrechts and co-scripter Johan Horemans have conjured up a vivid, often cynical, sometimes blood-curdling submarine extravaganza. Indeed, the filmmakers have cherry-picked from a catalog of formulaic scenes which you probably may remember if you've seen other spectacular World War II naval escapades.

Although their film is often far-fetched, Huybrechts and Horemans have done a splendid, slam-bang job of conjuring up an air of plausibility for their outlandish, high-octane shenanigans. Moreover, they have generated enough grisly, white-knuckled scenes to keep you poised on the edge of your seat. Certain sequences in "Torpedo" may be a bit brutal for the squeamish. Specifically, an early scene shows one of the heroes dunking a stubborn German officer repeatedly into a tub brimming with water to wrest secret information from him. Finally, when the hero realizes he is wasting his time, a cohort drops a hand grenade into the tub, and the explosion obliterates the officer's head. Worse scenes than this that lack gory prosthetics ensue and attest to the wrath of our heroes. Everything that can go awry aboard the titular submarine as our heroes and heroine struggle desperately to accomplish their suicidal mission seems destined by fate.

These intrepid Belgian resistance fighters amount to a rag-tag team of patriots. Gifted with a sense of ingenuity, they will leave you gasping with surprise at their initial subterfuge. These stealthy combatants mow down an unsuspecting company of Nazis who're gloating over several dead Belgians that they have dangled from the gallows. I've seen every major World War II movie, and I've never seen a more cleverly orchestrated ambush with poetic justice. Huybrechts and Horemans do an exemplary job of differentiating each of these fighters. Tragically, the father who supervises these resilient warriors suffered a fate that nobody should ever experience. Wrists chained behind his back to a brick wall, Stan (Koen De Bouw of "The Dark House") must watch in horror as an odious Gestapo officer conducts an interrogation without mercy involving the fate of the hero's infant grandson. If you can survive this scene without hurling everything but the kitchen sink at your television, you'll probably savor this raw-edged, gritty war picture. Stan and his tough guy cohorts, including his sharpshooting adult daughter Nadine (Ella-June Henrard of "Portable Life"),have three weeks to learn how to maneuver a seized U-boat. Afterward, they plunge into the stormy Atlantic Ocean, carrying a consignment of uranium, bound from the Belgian Congo to New York City for the classified Manhattan Project. Happily, neither Huybrechts nor Horemans give either these reckless Belgium heroes or their ruthless Nazi adversaries an easy way out of this nerve-racking account of sea valor.

The claustrophobic setting of a U-boat is convincingly rendered on a low budget. Huybrechts knows how to confine himself within that budget without undermining authenticity. During the first hour, a captured U-boat commander, Kriegsmarine Kapitänleutnant Franz Jäger (Thure Riefenstein of "Dark Blue World"),teaches them the basics of submarines. Mind you, "Torpedo" isn't as frightening as some of the scenes in "Das Boot," but some of its combat is still mighty devastating. If you dread small spaces, you'll be hunching your shoulders and crouching in fear that you may bang your head or scrape your arms as you watch these fellows scuttle about in this sweaty little coffin of a U-boat. The pressure cooker suspense and subsequent release of tension during some death-defying scenes is awesome. A Nazi spotter plane tries to sink them when they embark on their mission. Unwisely, the Luftwaffe pilot delays his attack until the last moment as the U-boat is submerging, when the boat is most vulnerable to his weapons. Wow, does he ever get the surprise of his short life!

The scene when a torpedo snaps its overhead chain and smashes into an unsuspecting sailor, pinning his legs helplessly beneath its bulk, is harrowing! Moreover, a German submarine lurking in their wake is preparing to fire a torpedo at them, and they have mere moments to retaliate with their own fish. Later, Stan must swim an incredible distance at an unfathomable depth to save his daughter. Nadine is trapped in a flooded compartment of the submarine after a German destroyer has rammed them. This scene reminded me of James Cameron's sci-fi fantasy "The Abyss" (1989) where a husband desperately struggles to revive his drowned wife. Despite all this mayhem, Huybrechts doesn't strive to sicken you so much as spellbind you. Your own imagination must complete what he leads up to without indulging in gruesomely graphic CGI to recreate. Most of the drama in "Torpedo" occurs without warning and seems doubly terrifying when it strikes as well as who it strikes.

The biggest obstacle for anyone who watches this atmospheric World War II movie is its unknown cast. Nevertheless, the performances are all vivid, and the action is visually credible even when it defies reality. Remember, you don't watch a movie simply to complain about how implausible it seems, but whether it entertained you sufficiently that you overlooked its mind-boggling antics. "Torpedo: U-235" qualifies as a must-see for armchair admirals.

In Belgium this was seen as never done before. A movie in a submarine. All big names of Belgium thespians are in it as dis some faces you thought, hell, that's been a while.

Starts off with a bit of humor over it, the bathtub scene and the german losing his head. Though guys who are asked for a dirty job. That reminded me immediately to those old westerns. By bringing in the humor, you don't take it all to serious and it's best you don't because the last 30 minutes things are done that just couldn't be done. Swimming for example without any protection over 100 meters down below.

But I must say, even as it has it flows, towards the end it picks up the best of it and delivers an above mediocre flick. Of course, love, racism. nationality, it's all there, full of clichés but it do works.

If the humor had been discarded it would be much better. A mixture of all those flicks with subs in it.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5