Review of Hunter Killer (2018) by Popcorn55 — 31 Oct 2018

Well, this ain't no Red October or Crimson Tide. But, it's a pretty good naval combat drama which could have been much better. Good effects, talent, reasonable script, decent story -- but it somehow doesn't carry any real voltage except in a few scenes. The subtle flaw here is the editing! The editing is constantly episodic -- one set scene, then another, but few of the little connecting scenes that a director and editor are supposed to fill in to create a smooth, immersive story narrative. Example: the officers climb up into the hatchway to the mini-sub. Then -- boom -- cut to the officers sitting at the controls 3 min. later. Jarring "jump cut" just skips over a whole segment of time! We're like, "huh?" Normally a director will fill in a few 1-second, 2-second transitional scenes quickly showing the guys scrambling up out of the hatch -- urgently running to the controls -- strapping in -- flipping switches. This creates a series of shots pulling us along through an urgent and suspenseful part of the story where time is of the essence. Instead, we just cut to the guys sitting kind of relaxed at the controls. No tension! No voltage! It's "limp", and destroys the suspense.

This sort of thing happens over and over again throughout the film. It's as if they used the spec script as the shooting script -- as if they shot the whole film as a series of storyboards, with no interpolation or connecting material. It damages the film badly, but it's also very educational -- a shining example of what "episodic" really means, and why it's avoided by professionals.

Despite this, it's still an entertaining film, and I felt like I got my money's worth. The scene where the sub is getting kicked around by all those mortar depth charges is epic! Excellent punchy sound and visual effects, reasonably well cut, thasss what I wanted to see, oh yeah.

If they'd had more of that, and the director/editor had worked harder at transitional details (rather than just leaving them all out), it could have been a really tight and memorable war drama. Maybe they were trying to cut out scenes to shorten the run time? If so -- penny wise pound foolish. DON'T cut the 1-second transition scenes, that won't save any real time, but it'll hurt your film bad Mr.