A Realistic Portrayal That Surprisingly Lacks Drama Most Of The Way

Rating: 7/10 (25 June 2003)

At first - for some reason - I wasn't sure about Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson playing Soviet submarine captains. The roles didn't really seem to suit them for some reason. However, both pulled off good performances here, in a movie that seemed to offer a realistic portrayal of life on a Soviet sub in the midst of the Cold War (1961 to be precise.) Purportedly based on a real incident that came to light only after the fall of communism in Russia, the movie combines the rivalry between the two captains with the story of a nuclear reactor out of control and about to explode (and also manages to include an interesting look at Soviet perceptions of the United States - a perspective often lacking from most American movies.)
Perhaps the sheer realism of sub life accounts for what I thought was a general lack of tension for the first 90-100 minutes or so. It must be sheer drudgery for sub crews to go through drill after drill after drill; it's even worse to have to watch them going through drill after drill after drill. At times, the story actually became quite tedious. However, the drama in the last 30 or 40 minutes definitely helped make up for that, and surely - the tedium notwithstanding - the sheer realism of the movie earns it some points.
This is a good movie. Not the best ever made, certainly, and not even the best submarine movie I've ever seen (I'd rank "U-571" and "Run Silent Run Deep" ahead of it) but still it was worth watching.
Overall, I'd rank it as a 7/10.