IT FLOATS! KIND OF ...
Latest submarine action movie is as exciting as it is improbable
Back in 2004, The Late Show with David Letterman asked one of its perennial will-it-float questions by dropping a cheese log into a tub of water. It promptly sank. Now director Donovan Marsh poses the question again with a caveat: What if your hunk of cheese starred Gerard Butler as a submarine captain?
I’m happy to report that Hunter Killer does indeed barely keep its head above water, although that might be by moving fast rather than any natural buoyancy. The film cuts frantically between scenes at the Pentagon, under the Barents Sea in the High Arctic, and at a Russian naval base. Even when it stays in one place, the camera continues to move around restlessly. I didn’t sit through the credits to see who the cinematographer was, but I’m guessing her first name was Dolly.
The two-hour story is both complicated and straightforward — many moving parts, but no one who isn’t exactly who and what they say they are.
There isn’t even a deceptive Russian cook like in that other submarine espionage movie with the Scottish captain.
Let’s start with the Russians: Sweden’s Michael Nyqvist in one of his final roles (he died last summer) plays Capt. Andropov, survivor of a Russian submarine that sinks under mysterious circumstances. Alexander Diachenko is the Russian president, investigating the disaster. And Michael Gor is his duplicitous defence minister.
Then we have Butler commanding the U.S.S. Arkansas. His crew, including Carter MacIntyre as “XO,” the executive officer, are so cool that when the ship tilts to dive deep they don’t bother to hang onto anything — they just cross their arms and lean in the opposite direction.
On the ground is a Navy SEAL team led by Toby Stephens, tasked with finding out what the heck is going on in Russian politics.
Back in Washington, Gary Oldman plays hawkish Donnegan, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, while Common plays the more peaceable Admiral Fisk. (Common is also in new releases All About Nina and The Hate U Give, the animated Smallfoot and TV’s The Chi, suggesting he’s trying to live up to his name.)
Adding a welcome bit of estrogen and proving this story is not taking place in the universe we inhabit, Caroline Goodall plays the U.S. president, while Sarah Middleton is the Arkansas comm officer, and Linda Cardellini is an NSA analyst and good friend of Fisk. But make no mistake — this is a manly movie, in which men bellow and posture, occasionally asking things like: “Did we just start a war?” or berate each other with “You didn’t just start a war; you lost one.”
As exciting as it is improbable, Hunter Killer also contains a few inadvertent laugh-out-loud moments, like the scene where everyone on the ship has to be completely silent, and then that knucklehead Ensign Butterfingers drops a wrench in the engine room.
Or how about when someone mutters “they’re right on top of us,” and everyone on the bridge looks up — at the ceiling!
Then there are some plot oddities, like how the president of Russia manages to get himself captured by rogue elements within his own government.
I think I can answer that one: He didn’t have someone like Secret Service Agent Mike Banning from Olympus Has Fallen (and the upcoming Angel Has Fallen) on his security detail. Sometimes, your movie needs two Gerard Butlers to be truly successful, but there can only ever be one.