Action drama, ‘Hunter Killer,’ seems dated
The first thing you’ll want to do after seeing “Hunter Killer” is to find out when it was filmed, because the movie seems to take place in another geopolitical universe. A supposedly tense action thriller involving a potential war between the United States and Russia, it seems downright quaint, in terms of its presentation of clear-cut heroes and villains operating within a moral framework that makes actual sense.
So, to spare you the research: “Hunter Killer” is based on a 2012 novel, “Firing Point,” by Don Keith and George Wallace, and it was filmed over two years ago, in the summer of 2016. Oh, and by the way, the president of the United States is played by Caroline Goodall, a very reasonable looking blonde lady in her 50s. Nice guess.
For this and other reasons, “Hunter Killer” seems old-fashioned. It belongs to a genre that was pretty much exhausted before the Cold War was over. And it threatens us with a world that, from the standpoint of 2018, doesn’t look all that bad. The movie is overlong, at times confusing, and it’s selfimportant, with a soundtrack that keeps telling us we feel things that we don’t. Still, if you like this kind of movie, it’s not a bad use of two hours, especially as you probably shouldn’t expect another movie like this any time soon.
“Hunter Killer” seems a product of the post binLaden era, in which it seemed as if American professionalism and daring could solve even the scariest of international problems. Accordingly, it presents a problem to be solved, and then presents us with a submarine captain, played by Gerard Butler, who is just the man to solve it.
The story takes place in the North Pacific, in and around the Bering Strait, which separates the United States and the Soviet Union. The Russian president is visiting a military base, and a megalomaniacal Russian officer uses that as the opportunity to stage a coup. His hope is to trigger a world war between Russia and the United States, because . . . uh, well. Maybe he’s nuts? To that end, he torpedoes an American submarine. In fact, the submarine attack takes place in the movie’s first scene, and even before the explosion, you know everyone on that vessel is doomed, because they’re all unknown actors. The only thing that would make it more obvious would be if they were wearing red Star Trek shirts.
In response, Gary Oldman, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flies into a rage and wants to attack. But a very savvy President Hillary Cl — I mean “President Dover” — takes the advice of her staff and refuses to rise to the bait. Instead she assigns a handful of special ops guys to storm the Russian base and rescue the Russian president. The sub captain’s job is to pick up the men and Russian president after the mission is over and bring them all to safety.
I won’t tell you how it all turns out. You know already. But how it all happens is of reasonable interest. Butler is a strong leading man — the Tom Berenger of our time — and it would be nice if he got a decent part now and then. Still, he does OK with this one, playing particularly well off of Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, who is brilliant and contained as a humane Russian captain. It was, alas, the next to last performance by Nyqvist, who died last year.