Top Five: Submarine Movies

5) Crimson Tide (1995)

Crimson Tide suffers because it is a product of the Clinton era.  The whiny left needs something to whine about and a preferred target would be their armed forces.  The Captain is portrayed as an arrogant, reactionary dinosaur, it’s a bit cheesy and unflattering.  It loses points because of that.  What it does have is Gene ‘Shut the fuck up’ Hackman.  Hackman playing one of the men who kept the Reds at bay, as he puts it  he is running the most powerful weapon ever created and is ‘The first and last line of defence’.  True.  His performance is unfaltering and sort of makes up for it, further helping that is the fact that it is a good movie in itself.  It is directed by the late Tony Scott afterall, no stranger to skill or panache.  It’s a tight thriller ultimately with good performances.  No, great performances actually.

 

4) K-19:  The Widowmaker (2002)

Speaking of Red’s, here they are in a nuclear sub of their own headed up by Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford.  This has a better story than Crimson Tide, at least its told better.  The enemy in this pic is the boat itself, as the name suggests.  It’s actually quite similar, if you move the Russian nukes from Crimson Tide and place them on the boat itself – then have the Captain and his Chief dispute just what the fuck to do about it.  The difference here is that the common enemy is actually a present menace throughout the movie.  In Crimson Tide, the Russian threat was never made a third pillar.  Here, it’s Neeson, Ford and that creepy reactor. Daniel Von Bargen was never used properly as the Russian rogue General in Crimson Tide.

 
3) U-571 (2000)

One, glaring historical inaccuracy aside, this is a more than competent and underrated maritime thriller.  It’s from a time when Matthew McConaughey did other things other than romcoms and fucking shampoo adverts.  It begins with McConaughey’s Cpt. being unsure of himself, but overcoming doubts by sinking the German Destroyer that is stalking his (Hijacked German) sub.  To the approval of WW1 seadog Harvey Keitel.  In a way, it’s a kind of throwback to Das Boot but is still the leanest sub movie on this list.  The emergency of their enemy is ever present, there is no fucking around or arguing.  Shit needs to get done, and they just get on with it.  It has a classy score too.  Though they killed Bill Paxton off too early.

 

2) The Hunt for Red October (1990)

This was John McTiernan’s follow up to Predator and Die Hard.  I mean, what a fucking resume.  Coming in right at the end of the Cold War, it’s the (damned near) perfect combination:  Clancy, McTiernan, Connery and the death of the USSR.  Has anyone made a sonar ping reverberate as well as John McTiernan?  Has anyone done the nerves-of-steel Captain thing better than Connery?  This is a film that can easily be watched despite having read the book or already knowing how it ends.  Though the first viewing is easily the best:  Will he, won’t he?  This is actually the best Tom Clancy movie adaption.  No surprise, I suppose.

1) Das Boot (1981)

To the above question, has anyone done the nerves-of-steel Captain thing better than Sean Connery, the answer is, yes: Jürgen Prochnow.  In all of the movies listed above, each Captain has some quarrel going on with his Crew.  Washington is at odds with Hackman, same with Neeson and Ford.  McConaughey’s Chief doesn’t have his confidence and Connery’s men are a bit afraid of him.  But Prochnow’s Captain Lehmann is the complete, relaxed and confident master of his men and boat.  They respond to him like nerves respond to the brain.  And this is only part of the reason why this is the best sub movie ever.  The tension is masterfully built.  It feels, creaks and leaks like a real sub movie  It’s Petersen at his best.  The claustrophobia just works, Petersen succeeds in adding the weight of the Atlantic over this entire picture.  No time for internal disputes here, this is a real war, the biggest ever and they tend to sort the shit from the strong.  Das Boot is the best submarine movie ever made.