Down Periscope

Directed by David S. Ward, Down Periscope follows Kelsey Grammer’s Tom Dodge as he’s assigned as Captain to a rundown diesel submarine populated by such ragtag crew members as Rob Schneider’s Marty, Harry Dean Stanton’s Howard, and Harland Williams’ Sonar. It’s an appealingly familiar setup that is, for the most part, employed to distressingly underwhelming and tedious effect by Ward, as the filmmaker, working from Hugh Wilson, Andrew Kurtzman, and Eliot Wald’s screenplay, delivers a sluggish comedy that slowly-but-surely squanders its raft of appealing, seemingly foolproof elements – with the almost episodic midsection suffering from a palpable hit-and-miss feel that’s increasingly more miss than hit. (There’s a funny sequence wherein Sonar has to impersonate a whale but that’s more the exception rather than the rule.) The movie’s failure is especially disappointing given the raft of personable performers within the impressively expansive cast, although, by that same token, Ward leaves the majority of the actors either with excessively little to do or trapped within the confines of one-dimensional caricatures. (This is especially true of Schneider’s mostly grating turn as the abrasive Marty.) By the time the feel-good yet decidedly anticlimactic finale rolls around, Down Periscope has cemented its place as a disappointing misfire that’s rarely as fun or irreverent as one might’ve anticipated.

** out of ****