K 19...What I thought.

[JPR]

Just got back from viewing K19 and overall I think it was a good flick. Based on actually events, the movie is strictly from a Russian point of view of the events of the Russian nuclear sub K19 after it departure from dry dock. No other nationality is even heard from during the course of the film except for a US destroyer and helicopter. Even though the movie is suppose to be the story of the sailors of the sub there is a western twist to it. An underlining theme to the movie is the western conception, wether accurate or not, that the Soviet government had little concern for the safety of its sailors.

As far as acting I feel Harrison Ford did his best job to portray a navy captain sworn to the State and but unfortunatly I didnt buy it. His accent wasnt very convincing and he didnt envoke a very large presence on the screen such as Sean Connery in "Red October" Liam Neeson on the other did a great job of portraying an officer that puts his men safety above the buracuracy of government. He does a wonderful job of showing the tension between him and Ford but I don't feel Ford did a very good job of expressing the same tension. The other members of the cast were great also although I didnt recognize any of them.

So overall it was a good movie but nothing thats going to win Academy Awards but still worth seeing.

[Ladogaboy]

Yeah, I know what you are saying about Ford. I've only seen the previews for it, though. The thing I don't get about Hollywood: Why do they think it is necessary to include a bad accent to show that a person is of a certain nationality? If you want to do that, just have the entire film shot in, in this case, Russian, and then put subtitles in. Or, if you want the dialogue to be in English, just make in vernacular English... Don't try to make the actors sound like native Russians speaking English just for our benefit.

[Bires]

It was a good movie in the sense that it was well done (acting and producing).

I left the movie theatre thinking...that was boring. The movie gets right into the mission at hand and ends when the mission is over, very little extra information is given, and you don't really care about the crew because you don't know anything about them.

!!!!!MILD SPOILER ALERT!!!!




One last thing. I'm a physicist...even though it was 1961, I seriously doubt that the reactor officer would be convinced that the core would explode in a chain reaction. Even the core melted, the rods would melt with the fissionable material and keep the chain reaction from occuring. Obtaining critical density sufficient for a nuclear explosion is a lot harder than Hollywood would have us believe. (It's a good thing too...considering the events in the middle east in the last 30 years)

[Sir_Froggy]

I thought it was a good movie.

But some parts, I think the actors forgot they had accents, like when they were speakin really fast or something.

And when the first people stepped out of that reactor, and pulled off their masks, I was like "DAYUUM!" it freaked me out so much

[Burzhui]

wrong, the movie is all wrong

i mean yes there was a problem with the reactor, yes 7 people died everything else was just wrong

some wrong things are:
There were no american ships, no one, ever speaks to the captain like that,EVER. As for Soccer at the north pole, it was the K-3 sub sailors not k-19
As for americans, the 2 guys offered to swim to americans and were arrested right away in their quarters... officers couldn't even think of things like that, let alone actually offer them. Only volunteers went into the reactor... for mother land sort of
They didn't dive 300 for no reason... there was no riot with guns, and there was no safe loaded with guns

As always the russians got portrayed as neglegent peoples who run for help to uncle sam....


Also i don't see the need to have stupid, fake, not even close to the true thing, rissian accents... just speak english

[jujubees]

Originally posted by Burzhui
wrong, the movie is all wrong

i mean yes there was a problem with the reactor, yes 7 people died everything else was just wrong

Funny, I don't remember National Geographic touting this movie as being a historical documentary.

The opening credits state that the movie was "inspired by actual events," which is roughly equivalent to saying, "Wait till you see the tall tale that the writers have concocted, all for the sake of entertainment (and box office totals )!" The movie simply brings the historical occurrence to the public's attention, much like "Windtalkers" did for the use of Navajo codetalkers in WW2 (and I'm sure that movie was full of blatant lies, too). I could care less if they played soccer on the ice or if they really mooned the U.S. Navy plane. The general skeleton of the story was there, and it's amazing what these men sacrificed for their crew, their country, and the world.

At any rate, I liked the movie. The first 10 minutes were kind of slow, but the action picks up once they're off at sea. I agree with JPR's comment about Harrison Ford not conveying the tension very well -- he just seemed to furrow his brows a lot. At times, the movie was a bit heavy-handed in showing how ANGELIC Liam Neeson's character was, and how HARSH Harrison Ford's character was. After 2 solid hours of that routine, we get it. Really.