Hunter Killer

(★★✩✩✩)

THERE are so many good movies in theatres right now. The Gerard Butler submarine movie Hunter Killer is not one of those movies – it is bombastic and garish, ridden with clichés, preposterous politics and diplomacy, and frenetic, video game energy. And it is often so unintentionally silly that it’s actually kind of a fun watch. Das Boot this is not, nor is it The Hunt For Red October.

In Gerard Butler parlance, Hunter Killer is the London Has Fallen of submarine movies, genetically engineered in a lab to entrance the nation’s dads in basic cable reruns for the next 25 years.

The film starts out confusingly. An American submarine is torpedoed by a Russian sub in Russian waters, but back in the United States, all they know is it’s disappeared, and they’ve got to go find it. The man for the job, Rear Admiral John Fisk (Common) concludes, is Captain Joe Glass (Butler), who we’re told is not like the other guys.

The plot and the international politics leave a lot to be desired, although they do end up manufacturing a silly but effective stand off by the end. Based on the book Firing Point, this is the first Hollywood film from South African director Donovan Marsh, and he does cook up some captivating action set pieces, like navigating a submarine through a fjord of mines, or even just an old fashioned, ridiculously over the top shootout, which may have you laughing, rolling your eyes or even cheering (as a fair amount of people were in my screening), but it’s never boring. –