at time feel like airport 77 without the plane or the all star cast and 1978 gray lady down come out in the dog day of the disaster genre when charlton heston career a a big screen lead man be on it last leg and and there a sense of tired routine to this tale of a sub strand on an unstable ocean ledge after a collision with a fishing vessel . the last major submarine movie until the hunt for red october and it suffer the problem of most peacetime submarine movie . without the standard can not fail wartime dramatics of the genre depth charge and torpedo and silent run et al it a pretty static affair with heston and his crew spending most of the film sit around wait to be rescue while stacy keach hovers around the rescue ship control room and david carradine and ned beatty sit around watch from their prototype mini sub in murky model shot . a lot of money have be spend and but to little effect . david greene flat direction doesn not disguise the fact that there little in the way of tension while at time you can not help wonder if the price of the navy co operation be eliminate any possible drama from the script in the fear it might make them look bad . the film do briefly raise the possibility of conflict between heston and ronny cox exo over responsibility for the accident only to quickly let the matter drop l anyone get the impression that not all of the navy sub commander be at the top of their game . christopher reeve have a couple of line in a bit part and it nice to briefly see heston war lord co star rosemary forsyth a his wife even if all but one of her scene end up on the cutting room floor and but the film remain a pedestrian time filler . even jerry field add nothing much to the proceeding with his tv movie style score and bizarrely build around the carol of the bell .