Hostile Waters (1997)

Following the principle of "compensating rushed blog entries with movies quality" (Gosh, that sounds so anti-commercial ...) I stopped this time to a probably obscure production, made for TV, long ago, By HBO in collaboration with BBC. If you like submarine thrillers, or at least the context of US vs USSR during the Cold War, then what we have here is a must see. Despite the low budget, "Hostile Waters" has its place besides much more known names like "U-571", "Crimson Tide", "K19: The Widowmaker" or "Hunt for Red October".

The movie is based on a real incident, and as obscure as it might seem it did create some controversy at the date of its release relatively to the trigger cause of the incident (spoiler: the collision between two submarines, which apparently is not that sure it happened). As "K19" from the list above, the movie tends more towards disaster films than to thrillers, but unlike the "classic" type = "2012", "Volcano", "Gravity", etc - this is different ... Maybe is just my impression, but the setting of a submarine posing a nuclear catastrophe threat gives a specific feeling. Maybe it's because through the history this situation was a real assumed risk taken many, many times considering how many reactor-powered vessels were launched. Anyway, moving back to the movie, besides the action we have a nice cast: Rutger Hauer, Martin Sheen, Max von Sydow, Colm Feore and others.

There's only one minus that's a bit more consistent and gets noticed. I don't know why but the state of spirit on the Soviet submarine seemed a bit too American, reaching the climax at the end of the movie (which, well, it's not anymore on the submarine). Besides that, leaving the true facts aside and considering only the level of cinema realism, what we have here is probably more credible and more carefully scripted than many box-office hits in the "underwater" list enumerated earlier. Probably "Hostile Waters" might not be as engaging though as "Hunt for Red October", but in any case is very far from boring :) ...

Rating: 4 out of 5