Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) finds himself transferred to the gunboat U.S.S. San Pablo in war-torn China in 1926.
The Sand Pebbles is famous in a vague sort of way, mainly due to the fact it features Steve McQueen's only Oscar-nominated performance. He does have to do some dramatic acting in a couple of scenes, and is quite up to the challenge.
The film, however, suffers from being overlong, badly paced in some places and badly directed in spots. Take the boxing match between Mako and Simon Oakland; it's directed very badly, and it's hard to believe it was directed by the same man who did perhaps the greatest boxing film of all time, The Set-Up.
The film does hold one's interest throughout the three-hour runtime. The film can be a bit depressing, due to several uncomfortable scenes and the deaths of several characters. The attention to period detail in the production design is fantastic.
Mako gets a good role as one of the ship's coolies, while Richard Attenborough gets a flashy role as Frenchy and Marayat Andriane is good as a Chinese girl. However, my favorite performance is Richard Crenna's as the stoic captain. Overall, an entertaining, if flawed, film.
The Sand Pebbles is famous in a vague sort of way, mainly due to the fact it features Steve McQueen's only Oscar-nominated performance. He does have to do some dramatic acting in a couple of scenes, and is quite up to the challenge.
The film, however, suffers from being overlong, badly paced in some places and badly directed in spots. Take the boxing match between Mako and Simon Oakland; it's directed very badly, and it's hard to believe it was directed by the same man who did perhaps the greatest boxing film of all time, The Set-Up.
The film does hold one's interest throughout the three-hour runtime. The film can be a bit depressing, due to several uncomfortable scenes and the deaths of several characters. The attention to period detail in the production design is fantastic.
Mako gets a good role as one of the ship's coolies, while Richard Attenborough gets a flashy role as Frenchy and Marayat Andriane is good as a Chinese girl. However, my favorite performance is Richard Crenna's as the stoic captain. Overall, an entertaining, if flawed, film.