Review of Black Sea (2014) by Christopher Llewellyn R — 30 Jan 2015

In spite of some reviews labeling Jude Law as "somewhat miscast" - a statement with which I totally disagree - Jude Law is, in fact, one of the best things about this movie, and he is very, very good. All sinew and tough muscle, hair shorn to stubble, Scottish accent bursting from between clenched teeth, Law is the epitome of the angry blue-collar guy who gets the shaft from white-collar guys who care only about their bottom line. The film opens - after an unnecessary, though visually arresting, title sequence filled with archival footage of subs, Nazis and Stalin - on Law, as Robinson, a submarine captain who works (or soon, worked) for Agora, an international marine-wreck salvage company, receiving his pink slip from a mealy-mouthed (younger, English) executive. He is no longer needed (for reasons never specified) - even though he's given 11 years of his life to Agora - and an £8,000 check is supposed to make it all OK. I don't think so.

Soon, Law finds out that there's a sunken Nazi sub at the bottom of the Black Sea, filled with Nazi gold, and before long he assembles an Anglo/American-Russian crew to track it down. This is the best part of the film, as we see the barely contained simmering resentment of all of these men, regardless of provenance, against the superiors who have left them without gainful employment. Plus, director Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland") has populated his movie with excellent characters\ actors, Russian and non-Russian, alike: Konstantin Khabenskiy ("Night Watch"), Grigoriy Dobrygin ("How I Ended This Summer"), Michael Smiley ("Svengali") and David Threlfall ("Shameless") among them. Unfortunately, he also miscasts Ben Mendelsohn ("The Place Beyond the Pines") and Scoot McNairy ("Monsters"), two usually fine actors who here do shoddy work in underwritten parts. While the former are part of what works so well in the movie - the wariness and solidarity amongst the downtrodden foot soldiers of the world - the latter are part of what doesn't work so well in the movie - the submarine heist gone wrong.

Is that a plot spoiler? Well, then you just haven't seen the trailer yet. But don't get me wrong: I love a good submarine film ("Das Boot," anyone?). And some of the scenes of underwater claustrophobia and tension work wonderfully. It's that when things starts to wrong for the men, they also go wrong with the script. The set-up is fine; the development and resolution are contrived. But as a treatment of the struggle of labor vs. capital, the film works beautifully ... until it doesn't. So enjoy it while you can, and then be glad that it's less than two hours long.