Average customer rating:
- Despite fantastic director and actors.....
- A superior submarine movie - sad and elegiac rather than triumphant
- My 2 cents . . .
- Not Quite Das Boot or U-571, But Intense and Well-Acted Nevertheless
- Loving Subs
|
K-19: The Widowmaker
Starring:
Sam Spruell ,
Peter Stebbings ,
Christian Camargo ,
Roman Podhora , and
Sam Redford
Director:
Kathryn Bigelow
Manufacturer: Paramount
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Similar Items:
-
U-571 (Collector's Edition)
-
The Hunt for Red October (Special Collector's Edition)
-
Crimson Tide
-
The Sum of All Fears (Special Collector's Edition)
-
Air Force One
ASIN: B00005JLGJ
Release Date: 2002-12-10 |
Amazon.com
Based on an incident that was officially suppressed for 28 years, K-19: The Widowmaker is a fine addition to the "sub-genre" of submarine thrillers. The first major American film about Russian cold war heroes, it re-creates the nightmare endured in 1961 by the crew of the Soviet nuclear submarine K-19, when an exposed reactor core nearly resulted in a nuclear catastrophe. Several crewmen died, and K-19's captain (played by Harrison Ford) had to assert his command when near-mutiny favored his executive officer (Liam Neeson). This escalating tension gives the film its potent dramatic thrust, and both Ford and Neeson deliver intense performances while director Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark, Strange Days) ably controls a sub full of seething testosterone. It's not as viscerally thrilling as the classic Das Boot or U-571, and some K-19 survivors protested the inclusion of inauthentic drinking scenes, but the movie benefits from grand-scale production values, seamless computer graphics, and a compelling real-life twist. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
Despite fantastic director and actors............2007-08-24
.....this movie just falls flat. Harrison Ford is probably one of the greatest underappreciated actors of our time and is one of my favorites. I've always liked Liam Neeson too. Director Kathryn Bigelow has also been a favorite of mine since the mid-80's.
Despite all of these "big time" players, this movie is so BOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNNGGGG!
The plot slowly (and I DO mean SLOWLY) unfolds and the end result is just plain unsatisfying. Another thing that bothered the hell out of me was Ford's on again/off again "Russian" accent. Not only did it come and go, but when it was there, it was a TERRIBLE imitation of a Slavic accent.
I really expected so much more. I rented this title once and will never have the desire to see it again, even if it's on network TV.
If you like Harrison Ford, I would recommend:
Any of the original STAR WARS trilogy films
Any of the INDIANA JONES films
BLADE RUNNER
WITNESS
REGARDING HENRY
AIR FORCE ONE
If you like Kathryn Bigelow, I would recommend:
NEAR DARK
POINT BREAK
A superior submarine movie - sad and elegiac rather than triumphant.......2007-08-03
'K-19: The Widowmaker' may be historically inaccurate, but show me a military movie that isn't. This film is way more true to life than the idiotic fantasy that was 'U-571', in which Americans won the second world war by capturing a cipher machine (FYI, it was a British crew who captured the machine and anyway the Brits already had one, reverse-engineered by Polish intelligence and given by them to British intelligence in one of the more stunningly generous acts of wartime cooperation).
The important thing is not so much how doggedly authentic the story is. After all, Wolfgang Petersen's classic 'The Boat', surely the ultimate sub movie ever in its original miniseries form, is fictional. What matters is the quality of the story, and the story told here in K-19 is profoundly touching. Harrison Ford seems really engaged for the first time in a long time, Liam Neeson is properly cast for a change as a slightly ambiguous figure (instead of just as a nice guy) and Peter Sarsgaard is heartbreaking as the head of the team that attempts to repair K-19's reactor. 'K-19' has an emotional depth and sense of tragedy that most movies set in submarines simply don't come close to. ('The Hunt for Red October' may be the most famous sub movie of recent times, but it suffers severely from being based on a Tom Clancy novel.)
Kathryn Bigelow's films have veered between genuinely eerie (Near Dark, The Loveless), silly (Point Break, Blue Steel) and romantic but a bit daft (Strange Days). For my money, this is the first movie she's made that her fans don't have to apologise for. So who cares that the crew all have silly Russian accents? Like you'd prefer that Harrison Ford sounded American and Liam Neeson sounded like he was from Ballymena? The sadness and grimness of life in the USSR have not generally been paid attention to by US filmmakers, who for the most part have been content to portray Soviet military personnel as cannon fodder, but this is a brave effort and a gripping and affecting movie. The complete story of the K-19 is almost so sad that you couldn't film it at all, so it's a small miracle that they managed to get even this bit of it onto celluloid.
My 2 cents . . . .......2007-06-18
Firstly, there several are excellent exhaustive reveiews on this wonderful film (Chapulina R did a particularly good job). Read a few of them. My review comments are related to a relevant technical aspect ---
Hollywood NEVER gets it right on things "nuclear", usually muddling comparison and contrast between weapons and power production plants. A loss of coolant (heat sink) to a nuclear powered ship's reactor at sea will NOT give rise to a sustained nuclear chain reaction and absolutely not one that would also involve the weapons aboard . . . even on the shoddily designed/built early Russian boats. It is likely the core would indeed experience some melting (localized or homgenous) and theoretically could eventually melt through the hull of the ship . . . at which point the Atlantic Ocean would provide a superb heat sink.
Other than local bottom feeding sea life, the real threat to anyone other than the crew of a ship at sea is not really mathematically significant. The threat to the crew, however, in a situation as depicted in the film is huge. For the incident as depicted on "K-19", I'm surprised that anyone aboard lived to reach old age. Great peril and heroism were involved. But excessive radiation exposure often involves a slowly developing and non-spectacular demise so, as usual, Hollywood caved in in favor of the "mushroom cloud over the Eastern Seaboard" scenario. A shame.
I believe that challenge for the Captain involved two issues: 1. Saving the lives of his crew from the accumulating radioactive contamination (not an explosion), and 2. Not allowing his ship to fall into American hands. Mammoth tasks under the circumstances in the story.
Overall, a great submarine flick however. Other than these nuclear issues, there is very little submarine technical baggage to keep up with. Much of the film's tension involves the human aspect.
A very nicely done, high dollar production and is great entertainment.
Not Quite Das Boot or U-571, But Intense and Well-Acted Nevertheless.......2007-06-04
After reading Jenny J.J.I.'s review of Das Boot - The Director's Cut, a very nice reviewer who doesn't mind me promoting her here, I was reminded of this film and watched it along with U-571 (Collector's Edition) over the weekend with my family. Amazon did a fine job with it's review that explains the basics of the story well enough, so I don't feel the necessity of repeating the plot here. I'll just stick to what I liked and disliked about the film within this review.
There is plenty to like about this well-made and well-acted "sub" genre. Harrison Ford give a compelling performance although it is hampered a bit by his ill-attempt at a Russian accent. This film, however, doesn't really belong to Ford, but to his co-star Liam Neeson, Batman Begins (Widescreen Edition), The Haunting, Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition), who steal just about any movie he is in.
The director, the very underrated and versatile Kathryn Bigelow whose credits include the crime drama Blue Steel (1990) with Jamie Lee Curtis, the bizarre sci-fi film Strange Days with Ralph Fiennes, and the small classic thriller Near Dark (2pc) (Ws Spec) with Bill Paxton, Adrian Pasdar, and Lance Hendrikson, is confident and uncompromising.
This film failed to find an audience upon its release and I think that was more an issue of this film being about a RUSSIAN sub and for the most part, we didn't and don't care about them and their Cold War efforts no matter how compelling the story is or how well-acted. In addition, this film was released during the summer blockbuster time of year and was just kind of lost in the shuffle wherein lighter or more exciting films made more of splash at the box-office than this heavier film which would have done better in the fall or winter months.
Regardless of why this film failed to find an audience upon its release, it is a top-notch thriller that is executed very well and has a very compelling storyline no matter what country one comes from.
Loving Subs.......2007-04-07
Great movie, really shows other beliefs in bad luck and whatnot. Just an excellent drama with bravery showed every step of the way. If you like sub movies, this is one to add to your collection.
Average customer rating:
- Despite fantastic director and actors.....
- A superior submarine movie - sad and elegiac rather than triumphant
- My 2 cents . . .
- Not Quite Das Boot or U-571, But Intense and Well-Acted Nevertheless
- Loving Subs
|
K-19: The Widowmaker
Starring:
Sam Spruell ,
Peter Stebbings ,
Christian Camargo ,
Roman Podhora , and
Sam Redford
Director:
Kathryn Bigelow
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
Thrillers
| Mystery & Suspense
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Ackland, Joss
| ( A )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Ford, Harrison
| ( F )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Neeson, Liam
| ( N )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Runyan, Tygh
| ( R )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Woodward, Tim
| ( W )
| Actors & Actresses
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Bigelow, Kathryn
| ( B )
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DVDs Under $7.49
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( K )
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Similar Items:
-
U-571 (Collector's Edition)
-
The Hunt for Red October (Special Collector's Edition)
-
Crimson Tide
-
The Sum of All Fears (Special Collector's Edition)
-
Air Force One
ASIN: B00006RJCA |
Amazon.com
Based on an incident that was officially suppressed for 28 years, K-19: The Widowmaker is a fine addition to the "sub-genre" of submarine thrillers. The first major American film about Russian cold war heroes, it re-creates the nightmare endured in 1961 by the crew of the Soviet nuclear submarine K-19, when an exposed reactor core nearly resulted in a nuclear catastrophe. Several crewmen died, and K-19's captain (played by Harrison Ford) had to assert his command when near-mutiny favored his executive officer (Liam Neeson). This escalating tension gives the film its potent dramatic thrust, and both Ford and Neeson deliver intense performances while director Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark, Strange Days) ably controls a sub full of seething testosterone. It's not as viscerally thrilling as the classic Das Boot or U-571, and some K-19 survivors protested the inclusion of inauthentic drinking scenes, but the movie benefits from grand-scale production values, seamless computer graphics, and a compelling real-life twist. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
Despite fantastic director and actors............2007-08-24
.....this movie just falls flat. Harrison Ford is probably one of the greatest underappreciated actors of our time and is one of my favorites. I've always liked Liam Neeson too. Director Kathryn Bigelow has also been a favorite of mine since the mid-80's.
Despite all of these "big time" players, this movie is so BOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNNGGGG!
The plot slowly (and I DO mean SLOWLY) unfolds and the end result is just plain unsatisfying. Another thing that bothered the hell out of me was Ford's on again/off again "Russian" accent. Not only did it come and go, but when it was there, it was a TERRIBLE imitation of a Slavic accent.
I really expected so much more. I rented this title once and will never have the desire to see it again, even if it's on network TV.
If you like Harrison Ford, I would recommend:
Any of the original STAR WARS trilogy films
Any of the INDIANA JONES films
BLADE RUNNER
WITNESS
REGARDING HENRY
AIR FORCE ONE
If you like Kathryn Bigelow, I would recommend:
NEAR DARK
POINT BREAK
A superior submarine movie - sad and elegiac rather than triumphant.......2007-08-03
'K-19: The Widowmaker' may be historically inaccurate, but show me a military movie that isn't. This film is way more true to life than the idiotic fantasy that was 'U-571', in which Americans won the second world war by capturing a cipher machine (FYI, it was a British crew who captured the machine and anyway the Brits already had one, reverse-engineered by Polish intelligence and given by them to British intelligence in one of the more stunningly generous acts of wartime cooperation).
The important thing is not so much how doggedly authentic the story is. After all, Wolfgang Petersen's classic 'The Boat', surely the ultimate sub movie ever in its original miniseries form, is fictional. What matters is the quality of the story, and the story told here in K-19 is profoundly touching. Harrison Ford seems really engaged for the first time in a long time, Liam Neeson is properly cast for a change as a slightly ambiguous figure (instead of just as a nice guy) and Peter Sarsgaard is heartbreaking as the head of the team that attempts to repair K-19's reactor. 'K-19' has an emotional depth and sense of tragedy that most movies set in submarines simply don't come close to. ('The Hunt for Red October' may be the most famous sub movie of recent times, but it suffers severely from being based on a Tom Clancy novel.)
Kathryn Bigelow's films have veered between genuinely eerie (Near Dark, The Loveless), silly (Point Break, Blue Steel) and romantic but a bit daft (Strange Days). For my money, this is the first movie she's made that her fans don't have to apologise for. So who cares that the crew all have silly Russian accents? Like you'd prefer that Harrison Ford sounded American and Liam Neeson sounded like he was from Ballymena? The sadness and grimness of life in the USSR have not generally been paid attention to by US filmmakers, who for the most part have been content to portray Soviet military personnel as cannon fodder, but this is a brave effort and a gripping and affecting movie. The complete story of the K-19 is almost so sad that you couldn't film it at all, so it's a small miracle that they managed to get even this bit of it onto celluloid.
My 2 cents . . . .......2007-06-18
Firstly, there several are excellent exhaustive reveiews on this wonderful film (Chapulina R did a particularly good job). Read a few of them. My review comments are related to a relevant technical aspect ---
Hollywood NEVER gets it right on things "nuclear", usually muddling comparison and contrast between weapons and power production plants. A loss of coolant (heat sink) to a nuclear powered ship's reactor at sea will NOT give rise to a sustained nuclear chain reaction and absolutely not one that would also involve the weapons aboard . . . even on the shoddily designed/built early Russian boats. It is likely the core would indeed experience some melting (localized or homgenous) and theoretically could eventually melt through the hull of the ship . . . at which point the Atlantic Ocean would provide a superb heat sink.
Other than local bottom feeding sea life, the real threat to anyone other than the crew of a ship at sea is not really mathematically significant. The threat to the crew, however, in a situation as depicted in the film is huge. For the incident as depicted on "K-19", I'm surprised that anyone aboard lived to reach old age. Great peril and heroism were involved. But excessive radiation exposure often involves a slowly developing and non-spectacular demise so, as usual, Hollywood caved in in favor of the "mushroom cloud over the Eastern Seaboard" scenario. A shame.
I believe that challenge for the Captain involved two issues: 1. Saving the lives of his crew from the accumulating radioactive contamination (not an explosion), and 2. Not allowing his ship to fall into American hands. Mammoth tasks under the circumstances in the story.
Overall, a great submarine flick however. Other than these nuclear issues, there is very little submarine technical baggage to keep up with. Much of the film's tension involves the human aspect.
A very nicely done, high dollar production and is great entertainment.
Not Quite Das Boot or U-571, But Intense and Well-Acted Nevertheless.......2007-06-04
After reading Jenny J.J.I.'s review of Das Boot - The Director's Cut, a very nice reviewer who doesn't mind me promoting her here, I was reminded of this film and watched it along with U-571 (Collector's Edition) over the weekend with my family. Amazon did a fine job with it's review that explains the basics of the story well enough, so I don't feel the necessity of repeating the plot here. I'll just stick to what I liked and disliked about the film within this review.
There is plenty to like about this well-made and well-acted "sub" genre. Harrison Ford give a compelling performance although it is hampered a bit by his ill-attempt at a Russian accent. This film, however, doesn't really belong to Ford, but to his co-star Liam Neeson, Batman Begins (Widescreen Edition), The Haunting, Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition), who steal just about any movie he is in.
The director, the very underrated and versatile Kathryn Bigelow whose credits include the crime drama Blue Steel (1990) with Jamie Lee Curtis, the bizarre sci-fi film Strange Days with Ralph Fiennes, and the small classic thriller Near Dark (2pc) (Ws Spec) with Bill Paxton, Adrian Pasdar, and Lance Hendrikson, is confident and uncompromising.
This film failed to find an audience upon its release and I think that was more an issue of this film being about a RUSSIAN sub and for the most part, we didn't and don't care about them and their Cold War efforts no matter how compelling the story is or how well-acted. In addition, this film was released during the summer blockbuster time of year and was just kind of lost in the shuffle wherein lighter or more exciting films made more of splash at the box-office than this heavier film which would have done better in the fall or winter months.
Regardless of why this film failed to find an audience upon its release, it is a top-notch thriller that is executed very well and has a very compelling storyline no matter what country one comes from.
Loving Subs.......2007-04-07
Great movie, really shows other beliefs in bad luck and whatnot. Just an excellent drama with bravery showed every step of the way. If you like sub movies, this is one to add to your collection.
Description
Director Sydney Pollack guest hosts tonight and engages actor Harrison Ford in a discussion about his new movie, K-19: The Widowmaker. Ford talks about the film, which tells the story of the many disasters that befell the Soviet submarine K-19, and about his larger career in movies.
Average customer rating:
|
K-19 The Widowmaker
Manufacturer: Paramount
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
General
| Mystery & Suspense
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
All Paramount
| Paramount Home Entertainment
| Studio Specials
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
ASIN: B000LPXPTM |
Customer Reviews:
Honor, Courage and Duty.......2007-01-12
This is a moving story of honor, courage and duty to one's homeland and to one's shipmates. It is moving, not uplifting. The price of duty, even though honorable and showing great courage is not always pretty as this film depicts. Harrison Ford gives one of his most realistic performances though not one of his most charismatic (which is loyal to his character). Liam Neeson's character must show all the human qualities that Ford's captain can not, because Ford is the captain and Neeson understands this point. Both actors are brilliant in this respect. Don't wait for this film to jump up and grab you. Just let it work on you. The images will stay with you. Try to watch some of the specials they are showing on TV about the actual event. It will make this film even more closer and moving.
Average customer rating:
- Despite fantastic director and actors.....
- A superior submarine movie - sad and elegiac rather than triumphant
- My 2 cents . . .
- Not Quite Das Boot or U-571, But Intense and Well-Acted Nevertheless
- Loving Subs
|
K-19: The Widowmaker [Region 2]
Starring:
Sam Spruell ,
Peter Stebbings ,
Christian Camargo ,
Roman Podhora , and
Sam Redford
Director:
Kathryn Bigelow
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
Thrillers
| Mystery & Suspense
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Ackland, Joss
| ( A )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Ford, Harrison
| ( F )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Neeson, Liam
| ( N )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Runyan, Tygh
| ( R )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Woodward, Tim
| ( W )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Bigelow, Kathryn
| ( B )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
( K )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
-
U-571 (Collector's Edition)
-
The Hunt for Red October (Special Collector's Edition)
-
Crimson Tide
-
The Sum of All Fears (Special Collector's Edition)
-
Air Force One
ASIN: B00006FMG6 |
Amazon.com
Based on an incident that was officially suppressed for 28 years, K-19: The Widowmaker is a fine addition to the "sub-genre" of submarine thrillers. The first major American film about Russian cold war heroes, it re-creates the nightmare endured in 1961 by the crew of the Soviet nuclear submarine K-19, when an exposed reactor core nearly resulted in a nuclear catastrophe. Several crewmen died, and K-19's captain (played by Harrison Ford) had to assert his command when near-mutiny favored his executive officer (Liam Neeson). This escalating tension gives the film its potent dramatic thrust, and both Ford and Neeson deliver intense performances while director Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark, Strange Days) ably controls a sub full of seething testosterone. It's not as viscerally thrilling as the classic Das Boot or U-571, and some K-19 survivors protested the inclusion of inauthentic drinking scenes, but the movie benefits from grand-scale production values, seamless computer graphics, and a compelling real-life twist. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
Despite fantastic director and actors............2007-08-24
.....this movie just falls flat. Harrison Ford is probably one of the greatest underappreciated actors of our time and is one of my favorites. I've always liked Liam Neeson too. Director Kathryn Bigelow has also been a favorite of mine since the mid-80's.
Despite all of these "big time" players, this movie is so BOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNNGGGG!
The plot slowly (and I DO mean SLOWLY) unfolds and the end result is just plain unsatisfying. Another thing that bothered the hell out of me was Ford's on again/off again "Russian" accent. Not only did it come and go, but when it was there, it was a TERRIBLE imitation of a Slavic accent.
I really expected so much more. I rented this title once and will never have the desire to see it again, even if it's on network TV.
If you like Harrison Ford, I would recommend:
Any of the original STAR WARS trilogy films
Any of the INDIANA JONES films
BLADE RUNNER
WITNESS
REGARDING HENRY
AIR FORCE ONE
If you like Kathryn Bigelow, I would recommend:
NEAR DARK
POINT BREAK
A superior submarine movie - sad and elegiac rather than triumphant.......2007-08-03
'K-19: The Widowmaker' may be historically inaccurate, but show me a military movie that isn't. This film is way more true to life than the idiotic fantasy that was 'U-571', in which Americans won the second world war by capturing a cipher machine (FYI, it was a British crew who captured the machine and anyway the Brits already had one, reverse-engineered by Polish intelligence and given by them to British intelligence in one of the more stunningly generous acts of wartime cooperation).
The important thing is not so much how doggedly authentic the story is. After all, Wolfgang Petersen's classic 'The Boat', surely the ultimate sub movie ever in its original miniseries form, is fictional. What matters is the quality of the story, and the story told here in K-19 is profoundly touching. Harrison Ford seems really engaged for the first time in a long time, Liam Neeson is properly cast for a change as a slightly ambiguous figure (instead of just as a nice guy) and Peter Sarsgaard is heartbreaking as the head of the team that attempts to repair K-19's reactor. 'K-19' has an emotional depth and sense of tragedy that most movies set in submarines simply don't come close to. ('The Hunt for Red October' may be the most famous sub movie of recent times, but it suffers severely from being based on a Tom Clancy novel.)
Kathryn Bigelow's films have veered between genuinely eerie (Near Dark, The Loveless), silly (Point Break, Blue Steel) and romantic but a bit daft (Strange Days). For my money, this is the first movie she's made that her fans don't have to apologise for. So who cares that the crew all have silly Russian accents? Like you'd prefer that Harrison Ford sounded American and Liam Neeson sounded like he was from Ballymena? The sadness and grimness of life in the USSR have not generally been paid attention to by US filmmakers, who for the most part have been content to portray Soviet military personnel as cannon fodder, but this is a brave effort and a gripping and affecting movie. The complete story of the K-19 is almost so sad that you couldn't film it at all, so it's a small miracle that they managed to get even this bit of it onto celluloid.
My 2 cents . . . .......2007-06-18
Firstly, there several are excellent exhaustive reveiews on this wonderful film (Chapulina R did a particularly good job). Read a few of them. My review comments are related to a relevant technical aspect ---
Hollywood NEVER gets it right on things "nuclear", usually muddling comparison and contrast between weapons and power production plants. A loss of coolant (heat sink) to a nuclear powered ship's reactor at sea will NOT give rise to a sustained nuclear chain reaction and absolutely not one that would also involve the weapons aboard . . . even on the shoddily designed/built early Russian boats. It is likely the core would indeed experience some melting (localized or homgenous) and theoretically could eventually melt through the hull of the ship . . . at which point the Atlantic Ocean would provide a superb heat sink.
Other than local bottom feeding sea life, the real threat to anyone other than the crew of a ship at sea is not really mathematically significant. The threat to the crew, however, in a situation as depicted in the film is huge. For the incident as depicted on "K-19", I'm surprised that anyone aboard lived to reach old age. Great peril and heroism were involved. But excessive radiation exposure often involves a slowly developing and non-spectacular demise so, as usual, Hollywood caved in in favor of the "mushroom cloud over the Eastern Seaboard" scenario. A shame.
I believe that challenge for the Captain involved two issues: 1. Saving the lives of his crew from the accumulating radioactive contamination (not an explosion), and 2. Not allowing his ship to fall into American hands. Mammoth tasks under the circumstances in the story.
Overall, a great submarine flick however. Other than these nuclear issues, there is very little submarine technical baggage to keep up with. Much of the film's tension involves the human aspect.
A very nicely done, high dollar production and is great entertainment.
Not Quite Das Boot or U-571, But Intense and Well-Acted Nevertheless.......2007-06-04
After reading Jenny J.J.I.'s review of Das Boot - The Director's Cut, a very nice reviewer who doesn't mind me promoting her here, I was reminded of this film and watched it along with U-571 (Collector's Edition) over the weekend with my family. Amazon did a fine job with it's review that explains the basics of the story well enough, so I don't feel the necessity of repeating the plot here. I'll just stick to what I liked and disliked about the film within this review.
There is plenty to like about this well-made and well-acted "sub" genre. Harrison Ford give a compelling performance although it is hampered a bit by his ill-attempt at a Russian accent. This film, however, doesn't really belong to Ford, but to his co-star Liam Neeson, Batman Begins (Widescreen Edition), The Haunting, Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition), who steal just about any movie he is in.
The director, the very underrated and versatile Kathryn Bigelow whose credits include the crime drama Blue Steel (1990) with Jamie Lee Curtis, the bizarre sci-fi film Strange Days with Ralph Fiennes, and the small classic thriller Near Dark (2pc) (Ws Spec) with Bill Paxton, Adrian Pasdar, and Lance Hendrikson, is confident and uncompromising.
This film failed to find an audience upon its release and I think that was more an issue of this film being about a RUSSIAN sub and for the most part, we didn't and don't care about them and their Cold War efforts no matter how compelling the story is or how well-acted. In addition, this film was released during the summer blockbuster time of year and was just kind of lost in the shuffle wherein lighter or more exciting films made more of splash at the box-office than this heavier film which would have done better in the fall or winter months.
Regardless of why this film failed to find an audience upon its release, it is a top-notch thriller that is executed very well and has a very compelling storyline no matter what country one comes from.
Loving Subs.......2007-04-07
Great movie, really shows other beliefs in bad luck and whatnot. Just an excellent drama with bravery showed every step of the way. If you like sub movies, this is one to add to your collection.
DVD:
- Ken Park (Uncut Uncensored Director's Version - Import)
- Khartoum
- Kung Fu Hustle [Blu-ray]
- Ladyhawke
- Lara Croft - Tomb Raider [Blu-ray]
- Lord of the Flies
- Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
- Mastering Aikido - 5 Vol Set
- Masters of the Universe
- Mission Impossible - The Second TV Season
DVD
DVD
