K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

Pretty Good

Fresh and Exciting

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

I only watched this because it is directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who directed the superb The Hurt Locker. I had my reservations, as it looked like a standard Harrison Ford / submarine thriller, albeit based on a true story.Turns out it was I expected, but isn't too bad. Has some originality, and captures the claustrophobia and danger of a submarine well. Would have been better without Harrison Ford though. He gives his usual stony-faced man-for-a-crisis routine, and comes across as fairly wooden.Liam Neeson's character is also fairly irritating, basically just suggesting the opposite to Harrison Ford's, at every opportunity.Ultimately, a fairly interesting capturing of an unknown event in naval history, an event which could have resulted in far more horrific consequences than it did.

I wanted to like this film. Sadly it got off to a bad start when all the actors decided to play fast and loose or not at all with their Russian accent. It was as if they tried to do something at the beginning and then said "aw... screw it. we aren't fooling anyone" and then dropped the accent entirely most of the time. You can put it behind you eventually but it's a sign about how sloppy this film is made.The premise is that Ford's character is a bit of a bully who will take out of proportion risks and endanger the lives of everyone on board to prove his point. I did not see any resolution between Ford and Neeson's character. And in terms of what plays out that I won't say - I never saw it coming. And that's only because where the film went was not what the prior time led you to believe. In fact, everything pointed in the other direction until it felt like Hollywood stepped in because the script said "insert turning point here" and then the characters had to pretend as if this was the natural next sequence of events. It wasn't.The special effects are fine and the submarine shots reasonably good. But the repair involved was also ridiculous. It was as almost as if they ran out of budget and would show you the same thing, with everyone having a go at what they were fixing which seemed more like "designated piece of metal". OK, we'll get beyond that but it still bears notice as you watch repeated scenes of the same thing as if to convey a sense of emotional impact on certain characters - which I didn't find credible.This is nowhere near Das Boot to feel the tension. And it's not really meant to be. And as a "based on a true story" it's very, very lightly based on the true story. Most of the acting is fine but the script is a real problem. And I don't think Harrison Ford would have himself cast as anything else but smelling like roses. And that's also disappointing. At no point do I think the conclusion of this film is even remotely foreseeable because the natural flow of the characters and events simply doesn't get you there. It's done solely to keep the audience guessing what happens next and the very artificial Hollywood studios twist makes for a mediocre, phony feeling film that certainly would only stand up for one viewing, at best.

This movie is a DISGRACE to its director! Tonns of pure LIES, some of which were 100% intensional, if someone could make a list of things that are wrong in this movie, it will be each 2cond second of this movie. Main investor of this movie was NationalGeographic.The movie itself is pretty good tho, if it was named "NOT k19" and there was no Russians or Americans, just red and blue. Otherwise, they used a real story and turned it to a ****** circus. Thre is a lot of things which are so wrong, it made actual veterans feel bad, this movie was successfully forgotten. Nice story, wrong real life events, and not covered attempt to make Russian navy look very very unimaginably bad.

This movie was originally suggested to me by my father, and at first I thought it was going to be some boring, predictable film. I was presently surprised by how good this film was. The acting was impeccable, the action was unpredictable, and lasted for a very good while,and was hurled at you very quickly. The emotional scenes did their job, and the suspense kept me grabbing on my seat waiting to see what happened. That being said it is not perfect. Who the bad guy is is never really established, and there seems to be almost too much suspense and I waited for a long time for the plot to be resolved. There are scenes, which may be historically accurate, but are irrelevant to the plot itself. Finally, the action, which I mentioned earlier, does not really occur until at least 1/3 of the way through. These do not take away from the movie that much and it is definitely worth the two hours of watching it.