2.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and violence
By Derrick Bang
Something’s rotten in the state
of cinema...
Back in the day of classic
Hollywood “disaster movies” — a cycle that began with 1970’s Airport — the survival rate was roughly
an audience-acceptable 50 percent. This issue revolved around key characters;
in 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure, we
lost Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Roddy McDowall, Leslie Nielsen and Stella
Stevens, while Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Pamela Sue Martin, Jack Albertson,
Carol Lynley and Eric Shea made it to daylight.
 |
| Frustrated by the mutual hostility that divides his Russian and British crew members, Robinson (Jude Law, center) angrily orders the men to get along ... while promising that this clandestine submarine mission will make them all very, very rich. |
More to the point, many of those
who perish do so heroically or tragically, in some cases while saving others. We
feel for them. Yes, all such films
have their villains, but no more than one or two ... and they always get their
just desserts.
Things have changed.
These days, disaster/survival
films have become slaughter films: mainstream cousins of the countless “dead
teen” horror flicks that erupted in the wake of 1980’s Friday the 13th. Most of the characters are nameless, faceless and
two-dimensional, just like all those doomed teens: stick figures present solely
to be killed, under unpleasant and often ludicrous circumstances. Nobility and
self-sacrifice are absent, replaced instead by venal and brutish behavior.
If we’re lucky, one person might survive, as in 2011’s
odious Sanctum, which raised the bar
for acceptable mainstream butchery. Alternatively, nobody survives, as with 2012’s The Grey. Heroic effort
proves futile.
Which, in my mind, makes such
films rather pointless.
And deplorably mean-spirited.
I’d hate to think this attitude shift
reflects our national psyche; if it does, we’re in a lot of trouble.
All of which brings us to Black Sea, ostensibly an action thriller
from director Kevin Macdonald, best known for absorbing dramas such as The Last King of Scotland and State of Play. I say “ostensibly”
because you shouldn’t believe the promotional slant; this is actually a
disaster movie. Which is to say, in the current vogue, a slaughter-fest.
And an insufferably dumb one, at
that.
It doesn’t start out that way.
Dennis Kelly’s original script is on solid ground during the first act, and
Macdonald draws solid performances from key cast members; we get to know — and
like — several of them.
Jude Law does a fine job in the
starring role as Robinson, a working-class, ex-Navy man who has made a
post-service career as a submarine captain working for an ocean salvage
company. As the film opens, he’s abruptly dismissed, “made redundant” in the
manner of many equally embittered mates he often sees at the local pub.
On this particular day, one of
them shares a secret involving a WWII-era German U-boat that was glimpsed in
the Georgian depths of the Black Sea. Having been fired that same day, the guy
never shared this information with his bosses; ergo, nobody else knows that the
sub is sitting there.
Better still, historical evidence
suggests that this particular U-boat was laden with Russian gold: an intended
payment to Adolf Hitler, to prevent a Nazi invasion. The Eastern front became a
quagmire anyway, and everybody forgot about the gold.
Robinson embraces this story,
seeing it as an opportunity to spit in the eye of his former employer, by sneaking
a treasure out from under their noses. But it’ll take financing, a sub and a
crew. The former arrives in the form of a clandestine investor brought into the
mix by a go-between, Daniels (Scoot McNairy).
This allows Robinson to purchase
a vintage Russian diesel submarine, and assemble a crew of British and Russian
roughnecks: disenfranchised men who have similar axes to grind against
established authority.
At the last minute, Robinson
winds up with two additional crew members: Tobin (Bobby Schofield), a naïve and
impressionable 18-year-old boy; and Daniels, ordered to participate in order to
keep an eye on his shadowy boss’ investment.
The Russians are essential,
because they’re familiar with the sub workings. But they clash with their
British counterparts, mutual distrust igniting from the start. Robinson has his
hands full, keeping tempers cooled.
Except that he can’t, and we know this, because one of his own
buddies — Fraser, played by Ben Mendelsohn — is an unhinged sociopath. It’s
only a matter of time before he does something dreadful.
Meanwhile, the
testosterone-fueled atmosphere grows increasingly tense, as the men nurse their
ancient sub toward the spot where the German U-boat is believed to rest.
Personalities emerge, with solid performances delivered by Konstantin Khabenskiy,
as Blackie, the savvy appointed spokesman for the Russians; Sergey Veksler, as
Baba, the talented sonar operator; and Grigoriy Dobrygin, as Morozov, a quiet
observer who misses little.
On the British side, Michael
Smiley is persuasive as Reynolds, the sage voice of reason, and a veteran of
such missions. Schofield also establishes a strong presence as the
inexperienced Tobin, whose participation upsets the Russians; they view the
presence of a “mission virgin” as bad luck. (Boy, they aren’t kidding!)
At first, McNairy’s Daniels is
welcome comic relief: a white-collar twit hopelessly out of his depth (pun
intended). But Daniels soon reveals different colors, at which point his
character becomes virtually identical to the smarmy corporate weasel played by
Paul Reiser in 1986’s Aliens. Indeed,
the lift is so similar that Kelly should be ashamed of himself, for claiming
“original” plotting.
Everything goes wrong, of course,
with various men losing their lives for increasingly absurd and contrived
reasons. But Robinson remains doggedly transfixed on their mission, determined
to keep going despite the complexity of running their sub with a dwindling
crew.
Kelly does deserve credit for
concocting a clever third-act twist ... but by this point, the film’s
deplorably vicious intentions have become glaringly obvious, and it’s just a
matter of idly wondering who’ll get dispatched next.
Granted, Macdonald and editor
Justine Wright build up some claustrophobic tension, mostly early on; Law also
does his best to hold the film together, much the way his character tries to
hold the crew together. It’s a futile struggle, in both cases.
Production designer Nick Palmer
makes ample use of the vintage Russian Foxtrot-class submarine provided for the
shoot; the setting certainly looks, sounds and feels authentic.
But Kelly’s storyline turns
unpleasantly grim and malicious, ultimately unforgivably so. It’s no fun to see
valiant effort go unrewarded, or to watch engaging characters picked off so
arbitrarily. Ultimately, Black Sea is
contrived and stupid.
Which makes us 0 for 3, in this month’s
fluky “black” miniseries, following the equally unappealing Blackhat, and the thoroughly ludicrous Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death.
Frankly, they all deserve each
other.
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