Review of K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) by Jens S — 26 Apr 2008

This true story of submarine events from the cold war time of the late 60s is one of the rare cases of an US movie taking an entirely Russian point of view. Which is odd, knowing Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson from countless other roles they don't seem to work as communistic military officers at first and so the movie drags on for a bit.

Once the atom run sub is getting into a real mess the movie has its strongest moments, when members of the crew have to expose themselves to radiation to save the rest. In the end, the message felt kind of ambiguous to me: on the one hand it was not promoted to blindly follow orders from above and sacrificing everyone, on the other hand it was a lot about doing your duty and contained a lot of heroism and pathos.

Still, worth watching, even though far from the awesomeness that's Petersen's Das Boot, the king of submarine movies.