Excellent, very touching and brilliantly acted story.

Rating: 10/10 (6 July 2007)

This is not the kind of film I would watch again and again, but for entirely different reasons than some posts here : Simply it is too sad, too emotional. In fact, I made great effort to contain my tears during the commemoration at the cemetery.
This is a great film which deserves much higher rating than this one because not only it shatters the typical American-fabricated stereotyped image of Russians as always the villains, but also proves that Americans film makers as well can produce gripping and suspenseful films without needing to put in an excessive dose of violence as it is the standard practice. No vehicle or building blow ups, no endless rounds of firing, no f.. words. Instead, what we have here are a crew of young and innocent and above all patriotic Russian marines with no hesitation to risk their lives. In fact, so patriotic and prideful of their Russian identity they are that they refuse to accept help from Americans and show this by pulling down their pants to show their bottoms to the US chopper flying nearby the submarine in distress. Unlike their American counterparts who are always portrayed as foul-mouthed, over-confident and arrogant lads, the marines here do look like angels in uniforms.
Add the remarkable acting of two giants like Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson and you will be served a 140 minutes of epic and tragic events surrounding a first generation nuclear sub in the 1960s.
Overall, I entirely agree with the poster from Australia. The film gets all the stars from me. Last, a little question; and forgive me if it sounds too simplistic: I would like to know for sure whether radiation exposure can really cause such a horribly swollen arm and whether people can survive hours after such a long exposure near the core as they seemed to alive when taken aboard the rescue sub.