A Disappointing Effort From A Fine Director

Rating: 5/10 (24 July 2002)

Though it's set up as Harrison Ford's own `Thirteen Days' and though Kathryn Bigelow is one of our finest action directors, there isn't a whole lot of tension mounted in this true but predictable tale of a Soviet nuclear submarine in such distress it could trigger a war. Whereas `Thirteen Days' had an immediacy that transcended its historical premise, and irregardless of the fact that this film is told entirely from a Russian point of view, this is a good example of Hollywood stuck in cold war-Soviet bashing, with the communist state portrayed as narrow-minded, careless and under-equipped and if a nuclear war were to erupt, well, it would be their fault. There isn't much moral shading in Christopher Kyle's standardized screenplay and though Ford does play most of the film as a by-the-book captain devoted more to the state than his endangered crew, when push comes to shove he easily slips back into the stoic, colorless hero mode that he has indulged in since `Air Force One'. Bigelow's points of reference run less to `Thirteen Days' (itself a very fine model of taut historical action) than to `Titanic' (some of the initial shots of the submarine in dry-dock recall the initial shots of the Titanic at port and it even has its own happy proletariat dancing and drinking sequence) and `Apollo 13' (with its digitized tracking shots into the heart of a nuclear reactor and its makeshift problem-solving) but there's little of the personal involvement that made `Point Break', `Blue Steel' and the flawed `Strange Days' so compelling. Walter Murch is the film's editor but he's probably got quite a bit to do with the film's excellent sound design.