Rating (1 to 10) : 5
Summary: Based on true events, Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson are two captains on a Soviet nuclear missile submarine who must stop a nuclear accident from happening.
If you have two stars in a movie, it is important that they complement each other or you will have a situation where both detract from each other or one star is underutilized and wasted. That’s the problem with this movie.
Harrison Ford plays Capt. Alexei Vostrikov of the Soviet Navy, a determined and dedicated officer assigned to skipper the K-19, the first ship of the Soviet Union’s new line of ballistic missile subs. He is to take her out on her maiden voyage, test the submarine, and then launch a missile to show the United States that the USSR now has a new deterrent in its nuclear arsenal.
But the K-19’s former captain, Capt. Polenin (Liam Neeson, Oskar Schindler in “Schindler’s List”), is also on board the maiden voyage as a second-in-command after being relieved by his superiors for not getting K-19 ready in time. To Polenin, the superiors are sending the K-19 even though she is incomplete; she is still lacking certain vital equipment and missing key crew members. But the Soviet leaders deemed it critical that K-19 test launch a ballistic missile as soon as possible to show the US that it had a new nuclear deterrent.
The ballistic missile launch goes off successfully but then trouble starts when the cooling system of K-19’s nuclear reactor fails, causing the reactor to overheat and potentially starting a nuclear meltdown. To compound the problem, their communication equipment malfunctions, preventing them from contacting the Soviet Navy for help. Capt. Vostrikov and Polenin try to repair the problem and save the ship but their rivalry and disagreement hinder it. Vostrikov wants to fix the problem at all costs, even sacrificing the men and is unwilling to accept help from nearby American ships while Polenin, who is closer to the sub’s crew, puts the welfare of them first.
The film has a good story line and a good plot. The pacing moves at a steady clip, the special effects are great. It’s just the acting and the casting that detracts from the movie. Ford tries to portray Vostrikov as a driven officer willing to push the crew to the extremes to toughen them and to prepare them for wartime conditions but Ford just isn’t convincing in portraying the sadistic side of Vostrikov. His accent, supposedly English with a Russian accent, is unbelievable either. But the biggest implausibility is when Vostrikov starts showing concern and respect for his men. Maybe it is because Ford’s depiction of his steely heartlessness was unconvincing that his change of heart is as unconvincing as well.
Neeson doesn’t fare much better either. His performance is stunted by Ford’s and you wonder if another lesser-known actor would have been better to prevent the anti-symbiotic performance of the two. They just do not present their characters’ discord in a dramatic manner. The best acting of a mediocre lot was by supporting actor Peter Saarsgard (Richard in “The Center of the World”), who played Vadim, a recent college graduate appointed to be the chief officer of the nuclear reactor. His fear of working on the reactor that would lead to possible death from radiation poisoning is palpable; his courage in overcoming his fears is much less convincing.
This was based on a real incident, when a Soviet nuclear submarine almost had a nuclear meltdown accident. In fact, there have been multiple occasions when the former Soviet Union had nuclear reactor accidents on their nuclear powered ships. This film could be construed as a criticism of that nation’s lax standards with its nuclear reactors. As the movie states in the end, Vostrikov was cleared of any discipline but the whole matter was suppressed by the Communist state, preventing the men who sacrificed their lives to avert an environmental disaster from being recognized for their deeds.
This movie is a rental. It could have been better though, with better casting and maybe better acting.
Captain Alexei Vostrikov: “These men sacrificed, not for a medal but because when the time came, it was their duty. Not to the navy or to the state, but to us, their comrades.”