There were some good things about this movie. The opening half hour or so depicted some very realistic depictions of life at sea, and an exciting ride as the storm hit the Patna, in the last half particularly there are some reasonable depictions of battle and action scenes and throughout there's a potentially interesting character study that's going on. That study revolves around the lead character of Jim (Peter O'Toole) a sailor who finds himself in disgrace after an act of cowardice and then spends the rest of his life trying to redeem himself. Jim was a character with some interesting background and with interesting demons to do battle with. The culmination of his struggle leads to a worthwhile philosophical reflection: "Maybe the difference between heroes and cowards is that they're ordinary men who for a split second do something out of the ordinary." That's not a bad lesson. There's also some good photography in this, and some great scenery.
Unfortunately, all the potential gets lost in a story that I felt resembled little more than a long and drawn out muddle. To me it seemed to have a lot of unnecessary filler and it failed completely to hold my attention. By the end, my attention had wandered so often and so far that I really had little idea what was happening on the screen. That could be a critique of my own attention span, I suppose, except that it's unusual for me to lose track of the story even if I don't find it particularly interesting. Personally, I was disappointed in this.
Unfortunately, all the potential gets lost in a story that I felt resembled little more than a long and drawn out muddle. To me it seemed to have a lot of unnecessary filler and it failed completely to hold my attention. By the end, my attention had wandered so often and so far that I really had little idea what was happening on the screen. That could be a critique of my own attention span, I suppose, except that it's unusual for me to lose track of the story even if I don't find it particularly interesting. Personally, I was disappointed in this.