All-action Kursk disappoints
We can’t leave, or it’s Chernobyl,’’ the seemingly doomed submarine man opines. Yes, the spectre of the 1986 nuclear disaster and this year’s breathtaking, heartwrenching mini-series recounting it, looms large over Kursk (out on DVD on Wednesday).
To make matters worse, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s (The Hunt, Far from the Madding Crowd) adaptation of Robert Moore’s 2002 book A Time to Die also has the ghosts of cinematic submarine classic Das Boot (which last year gained a televisual sequel) to deal with.
To their credit, Vinterberg and company have navigated perilous waters and created a solid, serviceable action-drama, even if it plays somewhat fast and loose with the truth.
What isn’t up for debate is that, in August 2000, a Russian naval exercise in the Barents Sea went tragically awry when one of its three submarines suffered a catastrophic torpedo failure. While it killed most of the 118-strong crew instantly, 23 survived the initial blasts.
However, while they were stranded on the sea floor, officials denied the severity of the problem, were slow in launching a rescue bid, and refused initial offers of foreign assistance, much to the angst and anger of the crew’s families.
In combination with veteran American screenwriter Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot), Vinterberg plays Kursk very much like a Hollywood action movie of the late 20th century.
Time is spent getting to know the crew, before disaster strikes. But, despite plenty of pensive looks through portholes and moments of derring-do, it leaves you feeling Kursk lacks the depth or emotional pull of Chernobyl, which makes its free-to-air debut on Prime later this month. Class acts such as Colin Firth, Lea Seydoux and Max von Sydow seem wasted in their tiny above-water roles, as impressive as Matthias Schoenaerts (The Danish Girl, Red Sparrow) is on the sea floor.
It’s also interesting to note that von Sydow’s inflexible admiral is substituted in for the man who really headed the ‘‘public information panel’’, a then freshly minted President Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, American misdeeds and attempted political cover-ups are the focus of Amazon Prime Video’s recently released The Report.
Writer-director Scott Z Burns’ (Contagion, The Mercy) tale looks at US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence staffer Daniel J Jones’ (Adam Driver) investigation into the CIA’s use of ‘‘enhanced interrogation techniques’’ in the wake of 9/11.
Denied the opportunity to speak to anyone from the agency, Jones spent years piecing together a 6700-page dossier from files, cables and communications. What he uncovered was the systemic use of cramped confinements, physical abuse, waterboarding and mock burials on ‘‘detainees’’, which appeared to yield zero results.
While part of this political procedural, which also features Annette Bening, Michael C Hall, Jon Hamm and Maura Tierney, can sometimes feel like a slog, it eventually becomes a gripping watch as Jones risks it all to expose the truth.