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I promised a K-19 review and you shall have it.

As the opening credits roll it says "Inspired by true events." It made me more nervous than a Russian reactor would. I'd read the book, and expected some dramatic license, but "inspired by?" As it turned out any similarity between the book and the movie was coincidental. Harrison Ford plays Captain Vostrikov, put in charge of the Russian's first nuclear attack sub. His character is cold-hearted and he walks around trying to look like a bulldog with a pout. The counter to Ford is Liam Neeson, who plays Comrade Schindler, the deposed Captain kept on as XO who is kind and paternal to the crew and tries to protect them from the evil Captain. Eventually the cold, ruthless Captain is guided into being the nice, ruthless Captain by Mr. Schindler.


The foreshadowing is just a little heavy-handed. How many times does that seaman have to tap the gauge until we finally figure out There's A Problem? Once would have been plenty, after all, we already know there's going to be a problem. And there's a running gag where a doctor handing out wetted towels has the tray of towels knocked out of his hands by crewmen rushing during an alert. It wasn't funny the first time, it never got funny, so much for comic relief.

The Russian navy has a roster of disasters too big for any rug to hide. The sub itself really was a disaster waiting to happen. The quality control during construction was nearly non-existent. They were just trying to get it built on time according to the Plan. Russia was a workers' paradise as long as you got with the Plan. That was the theory anyway. Poor materials, shoddy workmanship. The submariners were at the mercy of Mother Russia's bureaucrats, and they didn't have any.

It was touching when the Captain sent topside the men who would be repairing the reactor "to get some fresh air." He was just giving them a last look at the world before they willingly walked into a radioactive execution chamber. Magnificent acts of heroism. One thing they did get right was the men coming out of the reactor vomitting a yellow foam. Kind of strange to feel sorry for people going on station to possibly nuke New York City or DC. Unfortunately for them and their families, their graves did fit under Mother Russia's rug.

In contrast to feeling sympathy for the submariners, the viewer becomes quite uncomfortable when the Americans come into view during the calamity. As seen through the eyes of the Russians the Americans appear like vultures waiting to feed on the carcass. Certainly the Americans would want to get pictures of the sub while it was afloat, intelligence is part of the military game.

The lurking Americans become the antagonists of our heros in the sub. It would have been better if they'd trash canned the wet towel sequences and given us a few moments on the bridge of the American destroyer. The audience could have been treated to an American Captain concerned for the crew of an enemy ship in distress. The Russian Captain would have appeared to have been that much more wrongheaded to expose his crew to more radiation.

The movie opens with a shot of the sub in drydock, scaffolding, welding. It was probably an awesome shot on the big screen. There's another shot where the sub is in the background after breaking through the polar ice cap. The men are playing soccer on the icepack. Another terrific big-screen shot. But those shots are just moments out of 137 sleep-inducing minutes. Get an editor as ruthless as Vostrikov is portrayed and this thing could lose 30 useless, repetitive minutes and it could be a film worth repeating.

I'll never watch it again.



The Publicserf