Review of Crimson Tide (1995) by Kai82 — 01 Aug 2021

I consider this as a forgotten masterpiece. It has two great opposing characters that are caught in a cat and mouse game that can decide the fate of humanity. The psychology of the characters and moral ambiguity are great.

There is no black and white or easy answer in this situation. Story: It is set on the USS Alabama submarine which is armed with nuclear rockets and on a mission near Russia. Lets continue with the main characters first as those are important.

We have Ron Hunter who is the new first officer on the submarine and Captain Frank Ramsey who is a veteran and the hard as steel but fair commander of the ship. Both have different opinions, personalities and world views that collide.

The submarine is in striking distance when a civil conflict erupts in Russia. A nuclear missile base is captured by ultra nationalist that threaten to start a nuclear war if either Russia or the USA confronts them.

They receive the order to be ready to launch their missiles to avoid a nuclear attack by destroying the base before the rockets can be started. With this set up I end here to avoid spoiler. The story is engaging, intense and immersive.

It deals with a problem that has no easy answer as you have no clue who is right or wrong. Also the clashing characters are great. A conflict between people who believe in the same things but in different ways.

They set up the story and characters in a truly amazing way and the themes are worth to discuss a lot. By the way it is said to be based on an incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis which was the closest thing to the end of mankind in history as the USA and Russia were on the brink of nuclear war.

Back to the movie. It works well because of the great actors and their performance. We have Gene Hackman as Captain Frank Ramsey who is one of a few submarine commanders with actual war experience. He is a man of duty, no nonsense and hard but fair.

Then there is Denzel Washington as Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter the second in command. He is less experienced but also a man of honor and principles. The struggle or conflict between those two made the movie great along with the story.

They are like two side of a coin similar but different. Both characters have their valid points, code of honor and will do what is necessary. While I say these two carry the movie the rest of the cast is also excellent with George Dzundza as Chief Walters, Viggo Mortensen as Peter Ince and Matt Craven as Roy Zimmer to name a few.

They fill the support roles with a good performance and enhance the movie. The mixture of fitting great actors in an immersive story won me and many others over. For the sets and visuals I say they are fully convincing for someone like me who has no naval, submarine or military experience (Like nearly all viewers).

I always use the argument that it has not to be absolute realistic in an entertainment movie if it is not immensely implausible. On a sidenote I just read that they had no US Navy support as they objected a lot in the script.

So I praise the effort. The soundtrack was done by Hans Zimmer who is one of the 3 great film music composers in the movie industry (John Williams and Ennio Morricone are the other two). So there is nothing to criticize here as he delivered something that was nominated for the Oscars.

Overall this is a forgotten gem of its time. Basically unknown now but really good. An easy recommendation by me.