Black Sea
Directed by: Kevin Macdonald
Written by: Dennis Kelly
Starring: Jude Law, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, David Threlfall, Konstantin Khabenskiy, Sergey Puskepalis, Michael Smiley, Grigory Dobrygin, Sergey Veksler, Sergey Kolesnikov, Bobby Schofield, Jodie Whittaker
Adventure/Thriller - 115 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 28 Jan 2015
Written by: Dennis Kelly
Starring: Jude Law, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, David Threlfall, Konstantin Khabenskiy, Sergey Puskepalis, Michael Smiley, Grigory Dobrygin, Sergey Veksler, Sergey Kolesnikov, Bobby Schofield, Jodie Whittaker
Adventure/Thriller - 115 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 28 Jan 2015
Submarine stories are naturals for suspense. They operate under the guise where any little commotion, either internal or external, has the capacity to ensure the watercraft and all souls aboard spend eternity on the cold, desolate sea floor. Das Boot (1981) kept us tense watching a German U-Boat attempt to survive against British destroyers. Crimson Tide (1995) made us sweat watching Hackman vs. Denzel just about sink their own boat. Black Sea combines the ideas of Space Cowboys (2000) and Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and shoves them into a decrepit ex-Soviet rust bucket and the idea of millions of dollars worth of Nazi gold bars at the bottom of one of Hollywood’s oft-ignored seas.
Plenty of films are set in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans while the Indian and Arctic only rate a few. When it comes to seas, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Seas feel like they receive the most attention from filmmakers. Only Battleship Potemkin (1925) springs to mind when I think of Black Sea set films and that film was primarily set on shore in a port on the sea rather than out on the water. Well, feel forgotten no more Black Sea. You are fortunate enough to rate a Scottish-accented Jude Law and his merry mercenaries.
Plenty of films are set in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans while the Indian and Arctic only rate a few. When it comes to seas, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Seas feel like they receive the most attention from filmmakers. Only Battleship Potemkin (1925) springs to mind when I think of Black Sea set films and that film was primarily set on shore in a port on the sea rather than out on the water. Well, feel forgotten no more Black Sea. You are fortunate enough to rate a Scottish-accented Jude Law and his merry mercenaries.
Recently laid off private submarine captain, Robinson (Law, 2014's The Grand Budapest Hotel), comes across news his old company knows the location of an old German U-Boat laying on the floor of the Black Sea in Georgian waters. The submarine’s cargo supposedly carries bountiful bricks of gold bound from Stalin’s Soviet Union to Hitler’s Germany as appeasement funds. The submarine never reached its destination and now nobody can get at it because of how close it sits to the Georgia coastline. However, a plucky band of naval mercenaries, half Anglo and half Russian, will test their luck and risk their lives to get their hands on the loot.
Enter the Space, I mean Submarine, Cowboys. Robinson fills his crew with grizzled veterans feeling used and abused from decades of work for the Man with no returns. His motivational speeches frequently preach about how they are capitalism’s victims. It was their sweat and toil which made their masters rich at the expense of their well-being. Being that half of Robinson’s crew is Russian, perhaps his translated words are less likely to inspire their confidence and camaraderie, for a thick tension exists between English-speaking and Russian-speaking crew.
One of the more devious and xenophobic Englishmen figures out the fewer men who make it back to shore means more of the spoils to be shared amongst the remainder. Besides, why would Russians need so much money anyways he reckons? A mere fraction of their share would set them up as kings in their backwater villages. The Englishmen deserve larger shares, because hey, London is expensive. Unfortunately for the crew, it is not only the infighting affecting their survival chances, it is the high pressure environment and the lemon of a submarine they are using to chase their dreams.
Locating and sitting atop a long dormant submarine is one thing, but operating the third rate and rusted out ex-Soviet submarine they get their hands on is another. We expect any moment leaks to burst forth from the groaning and grating old sub’s pipes. The film’s most effective sequence in terms of suspense and intrigue occurs when the crew’s divers exit the relative safety of their sub and venture out into the complete blackness of the eponymous sea. The enveloping cold, pitch dark, and fear as they maneuver on the sea floor is impressive.
Unfortunately for the audience, this compelling scene is not only the film’s best, it is the only worthwhile scene. Black Sea fails because the crew are pencil-thin caricatures, the real world events which have overtaken its setting, and the eye-rolling clichés. Captain Robinson may have the luxury of having a few dimensions sown onto his character, but the rest of the crew, especially the Russians, are entirely stale and one-dimensional. Also, good job on skimming through what happened in the 2008 Georgia/Russia war which explains why no one else can try and retrieve the gold, but oops, Russia annexed Crimea last year wholly negating any possibility of our crew obtaining a submarine and launching from Sevastopol. As for the clichés, the crew’s youngest body keeps looking at and showing off pictures of his fiancé and the fetus in her belly. Anybody in the audience and on that submarine knows well enough he would be wise to stop doing that.
I appreciate a tense submarine movie, but putting some geriatric mercenaries with gold fever together in a Cold War situation between East and West all on the same boat is not a mixture for success. The incessant whining and yelling amongst the crew and exceedingly flimsy set up to get them all there in the first place is frustrating. End on a positive note you say? Well, the score is effective. Other than that, perhaps the Black Sea as a setting should have waited longer for its return to the big screen.
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