Jackson Booth-Millard
The title made it obvious it was some kind of dark movie, in the water, I knew the leading actor in it, and that critics gave it good reviews, so I was just hoping for something worthwhile, directed by Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland). Basically veteran sea captain Robinson (Jude Law) has recently divorced from his wife and is estranged from his son, he then receives the news that he is being made redundant, given £8,640 for his services and told to clean his desk. Later Robinson has drinks with former colleagues, he meets his friend Kurston (Daniel Ryan) and a Russian called Blackie (Konstantin Khabensky), Kurston tells Robinson they have an idea that could make them all a lot of money. A German Type VIIC U-boat from World War II that sank off the coast of Georgia, with a cargo of gold worth millions, their former colleague found its location, but it was never salvaged. Robinson agrees with Kurston to meet a backer named Lewis (Casino Royale's Tobias Menzies), who agrees to fund Robinson's expedition, on the grounds he receives a 40% cut on proceeds worth up to $40 million, a 20% cut on anything above that, and that his executive Daniels (Scoot McNairy) accompany the expedition. Robinson agrees to the deal, but then a young man named Tobin (Bobby Schofield) informs him that Kurston has committed suicide, Robinson decides to bring Tobin on the expedition, acquiring a Foxtrot-class submarine from the Port of Sevastopol. The crew is 50% Russian and 50% British, there are issues between the two groups almost immediately, only Blackie speaks both Russian and English, and Tobin is viewed as a bad omen, mistaken as a virgin, when in fact he is an expectant father. Tension begins to mount between the two crews due to the close confines of the submarine, and Robinson makes the decision that the take will be divided equally between each crewman. Due to mounting pressures the crew fall out, there is a fight, and Fraser (Ben Mendelsohn) loses his head, stabbing and killing Blackie, the ensuing scuffle causes a fire to break out, the sub is damaged, Robinson is knocked unconscious and at least two men are killed. Eighteen hours later, Robinson wakes to find tensions at breaking point, the Russians have taken over half of the boat, with the British in the other half, and with Blackie dead there is no way to speak to the Russians. The sub's drive shaft is damaged, they discover they are close to the old U-boat, they may be able to transfer its drive shaft and save the boat, but tensions continue to mount when it discovered Morozov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) speaks English. Robinson sends Tobin with Fraser and diver Peters (David Threlfall) to recover the drive-shaft and the gold, but on their way back, Peter perishes when his air hose gets cut. With Morozov translating the crew manage to get the Russians to install the drive-shaft and get the submarine moving again, at this stage, Daniels admits that they have been set up to do the dangerous job, his employer will seize the gold as soon as they surface. Robinson decides to remain submerged and travel to Turkey, to keep the gold and avoid arrest, he also decides, against the wishes of the crew, to attempt a risky journey through a narrow channel. Meanwhile Daniels persuades Fraser to murder Zaytsev (Sergey Puskepalis), there are no longer enough men to safely operate the submarine, and a second fire and explosion sends the boat back to the seafloor, and it begins taking on water. Fraser and the remaining crew members try to repair the leaks, but their efforts are futile, before the men can escape, a panicked Daniels locks the bulkhead behind him, three men are left to drown, but he traps himself snagging his clothing. Morozov closes the final bulkhead, Daniels if left to drown, and he, Robinson and Tobin are protected in the torpedo section, there are three hidden escape suits hidden. Robinson evacuates Tobin and Morozov, he explains he will follow using an emergency lever, the two men surface, but Morozov informs Robin there was no lever, Robinson chose to sacrifice himself, it ends with the thirs suit surfacing with some gold and Robinson's family picture inside. Also starring Jodie Whittaker as Chrissy, Karl Davies as Liam, Michael Smiley as Reynolds, Sergey Veksler as Baba and Sergey Kolesnikov as Levchenko. Law sports a strong Scottish accent and is good as the captain struggling to maintain control, the other cat members are fine as well, it is a simple enough story, westerners versus the Russians undersea, mixed with a desperate struggle to survive, and a treasure hunt, there is a fair amount of disaster to keep a pace going, overall it is a watchable thriller. Good!
Leon Smoothy
I'm an avid submarine fan and love these kind of movies, but though also a fan of some of the actors, this is a movie to avoid at all costs. I was baffled to see a 6.4 average for this on IMDb. It contains so many plot holes, not just for a person familiar with the operation of underwater vessels and diving (just 1 example: how about sonar pings from a 50's sub making no sounds?), but will most likely be unbearable to anyone because of this. Whole segments are just as if they were left out, and the whole concept was down right stupid on top of that, and the reasoning among the characters is amazingly weird, and not in a good way. I will not go into any more details, not to spoil it for those still wanting to waste almost 2 hours of a Saturday night as I did, but heed my advice - avoid it.
Sam Sloan
The big big holes happened when the two divers found the gold and the drive shaft inside the derelict German submarine. Pulling and removing a drive shaft would have been a pretty big job if they had just had that to do, but they chose to deal with it by not bothering to show how they were supposed to do it and instead giving the impression it was such an easy job, it wasn't worth even showing it - hey, they found it and now they see it, now it's done! And the other big hole was all that gold they found within that submarine weighing two tons! Again, it would have been a pretty big job just moving all that gold to where they would be able to get it through the submarine beside the same place and way they got into the submarine to begin with - beside the pressure lock obviously. And there, they would have had to hand carry bars of gold into the pressure lock, fill it with seawater, carry the bars and then place them onto some cart which appears out of nowhere somewhere outside the submarine onto the seabed floor. It would have taken a whole lot of work, a lot of time, maybe a few days and a lot of trips with all those bars weighing a total of two tons! Where did they get all that oxygen? And then they would have - or rather the eighteen year old kid would have had a lot of work on his hands getting the gold into the salvage submarine, because the other guy was killed when he fell off the edge into a deep canyon. And the kid was not portrayed as much an expert diver to begin with. And where did that winch come from? If any of this was possible, before even attempting what they were planning to do, there would have been a scene where a few of them stand over a table making sketches and calculations about how they were going to even attempt a big job like this. But I suspect the makers of this movie nixed such a scene as that because of the impossibility of such a job to begin with and decided to just leave it up the viewers imagination which is the only way to do such a job as that - in one's imagination. But the movie was entertaining even though it lacked credibility.
