Close but no cigar/boat

Rating: Null/10 (4 August 2002)

I went to K-19 hoping for an Apollo 13 / 13 Days-type retelling of a true story, with some dramatic license but still with trust in the actual flow of events. (Hmm, maybe if this had been K-13)
What the film makers delivered, however, was a decent military drama, with the usual raft of flaws one has come to expect from Hollywood. I shall mention just a few:
1) Harrison Ford should have been told at the start, "Don't bother with a fake Russian accent, nobody else on the sub is doing one either."
2) When the sub starts to crush, they should have remembered to keep it crushed for the remainder of the movie.
3) Since the conflict between the two captains was (to the best of my knowledge) fabricated for the sake of the script, they should have come up with a better one. Also, Liam Neeson encourages thoughts of mutiny in his officers, but then scolds them and locks them up when they act on his encouragement. Furthermore, the repeated change of heart that Ford's captain has, regarding whether to let the crew off the sub to save their lives, just does not click with the events that are shown; his attitude flip-flops seem purely script-driven.
Decent summer movie, but not a must-see.