A battle without an enemy

Rating: Null/10 (20 July 2002)

All submarine films start out with great potential as action dramas: the claustrophobia, the danger, the companionship and conflict between the crew members. They require an intelligent script and good acting but they generally get it, as they do here. The problem is one of variety. You have the looks through the periscope, the firing of the torpedoes, the explosions of the target ships, the depth charges, the waiting for enemy torpedoes to see if they are going to hit or miss...and what else? Well K-19 doesn't even have any of that. And yet it works.
What it ultimately has is a drama about courage. The one thing it has in common with other famous submarine movies is a conflict between the captain and his second in command. This time it isn't Burt Lancaster and Clark Gable, (as in "Run Silent, Run Deep"-1958), or Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, (as in "Crimson Tide"-1995) but rather Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford. the basic difference between them is that Neeson, the former captain of the ship who has been superseded by Ford for this mission, (as was Lancaster's character), looks at his crew as "a family" with ultimate loyalty to each other. The captains job is to protect them from harm. Ford's concept is that, with the stakes that exist in a nuclear world, the captain has to be willing to push the crew to their limit and beyond, if necessary because the consequences effect not only them but the entire world. He is willing to sacrifice his crew, if necessary, to the greater good. Neeson is not. But Neeson knows how to gain their trust and loyalty and Ford does not. Eventually, both men have to learn from each other.
The test comes when the cooling system of the nuclear reactor breaks down and must be repaired by men who are willing to enter a chamber where the temperature is literally hot enough to boil their liquids and heavily radioactive to make repairs. They know they are going to die, although nobody admits it. Neeson here learns that, at least in the military service, men have to be sacrificed for the greater good. Ford learns to care about them. Neeson's conversion is not handled as well as Ford's, (far too abrupt, with no warning that he is even starting to think differently- I contrast that unfavorably with Lancaster in "Run Silent Run Deep", where he learns the wisdom of what Gable was doing when he takes command). The ending reinforces both points of view.
This is not a very pleasant movie to watch, with the normal tension and claustrophobia being supplemented by the horror of the burns sustained by the heroes who go into the reactor. But it's intelligent, creatively photographed, (with many "comin' right atya" scenes) and splendidly acted, especially by Ford and Neeson, who's Russian accents are hardly convincing but whose performances certainly are. Ford's game face has never been fiercer. He has to be the grumpiest looking hero the movies have ever produced, although here he certainly has good reason.
The film has the same basic premise as "The Hunt for Red October"- a technologically advanced Russian submarine is sent to the Atlantic on it's first mission. But it's not a Tom Clancy thriller. It's something that really happened. It's far better than "Crimson Tide" which had an unlikely premise, (I think the captain would on his own done exactly what the exec did and was overdone. This one is pure human drama.