Black Sea (2014)

There's something about the submarine movies which gives a boost to the "thriller" factor, because that's the typical genre we have here - "Hunt for Red October", "Crimson Tide", "U-571", "K-19" and more or less even "Das Boot". "Black Sea" is no exception.

Something nice in this niche is that despite the limited context most of the times somehow we get a new original story. In "Black Sea" the action takes place in the present day. A sub captain in the commercial navy (Jude Law) is fired by his employer firm where he worked for more than 10 years. Since there aren't many open positions for a sub captain he decides to follow a tip given by a formare mate. Apparently the firm which fired him found out that somewhere on the bottom of the Black Sea lies a WW2 U-boat loaded with Nazi gold, but it was too complicated to legally try to get to it. However, a mysterious guy is willing to fund a private expedition. And like that we're getting on board of an old Russian sub, with a bunch of people quickly gathered to form a crew, half Russian, half British, all ready for the treasure hunt ...

From here onward we're between the classic theme of "if at the end are less alive, my cut is larger" and some sort of underwater "Moby Dick" where the gold is the whale and captain Ahab is Jude Law. The movie's catchy, but a bit over the top. First, for some characters the behavior change seems too sudden. Second, I'm not an expert in submarine technology, but what wee see sometimes is hardly believable at least compared to other movies. Thirdly, at some point it starts to look too much like a "horror" where you wonder who's the next who dies and if in the end there's somebody left alive ... ( spoiler: the answer is yes ;) )

Rating: 3 out of 5

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