"Black Sea"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

I tend not to like submarine movies. They just remind me that stressfulness and boredom are not mutually exclusive. Yeah, all those depth charges, red flashing lights, sweaty faces, and steam are plenty stressful. But, my goodness, they can be pretty dull. It’s like a slow, constant drip of water on your skin: both monotonous and torture.

I would not call “Black Sea” torture, though. It’s not a day in the park either, nor is it a quiet evening in, or even a swashbuckling adventure. It is predictably watchable.

“Black Sea” makes sure to remind you of the darker, and perhaps more intriguing, days of submarining—the Cold War, in particular, but also some of the Nazi U-Boats and WWII. But this movie is not really about all that. It is about Captain Robinson (Jude Law), who is a present-day submarine captain working for a corporation that, you know, needs submarines. That is, until he gets laid off. After all, who really needs submarines these days?

Robinson is pissed and doesn’t know what to do. He dedicated his whole life to submarining—and even sacrificed relationships with his son and former wife—and doesn’t really have anything to fall back on

But then a friend—also an out-of-sorts ex-submariner—tells him about this really hush-hush, really dangerous, certainly very illegal, opportunity. He tells Robinson that once upon a time the Soviets made a deal with the Nazis that involved shipping (via submarine) tens of millions of dollars in solid gold back over to the Third Reich. But on the way back through the Black Sea, the gold-laden submarine crashed. Either everyone forgot about the submarine—kinda a lot going on back then—or else they could not get to it, because, according to Robinson’s friend, the submarine is still there.

So of course what could be better for out-of-work sailors than to go on a treasure hunt? So that’s just what they do. They get their hands on an old Soviet sub, assemble a half-Russian, half-British crew, and set sail for the wreck.

The good-hearted, magnanimous Robinson tells his crew that, after paying their backers, they are going to split the treasure evenly between them. Jackpot! Right? Well, the problem is, the divers start to think, “Why does that there cook get as much as me?” And the beastly Russian engine-room worker thinks, “Well if one of these Brits happens to die on the job, there is more for the rest of us.” In other words, discontent is sown.

And of course it only gets worse, because, as we all know, a ride on a submarine is never smooth—whether it is a power failure, sinking below crush depth, enemy torpedoes and depth charges (which, mercifully, do not make an appearance in this film), or just those random yet seemingly ubiquitous hull breaches, something must go awry. I’m pretty sure Murphy Law’s was made with submarining in mind.

All that is to say, “Black Sea” has plenty of the stress and tension you would expect from a submarine movie. You really do feel like it would absolutely definitely suck to be on a submarine when something goes wrong. And I, at least, had the opportunity to once again thank my lucky stars that I am a landlubber.

But, for all its heart-pounding, stress-inducing drama, “Black Sea” remains strikingly conventional. This or that particular scene may not be predictable, but the movie as a whole sure is. Jude Law and the rest of the cast do an admirable job bringing the amusing (albeit contrived) story to life. But all the plot points just feel too familiar.

So yes, you will still feel the stress, just like you will still feel a punch in the gut even if you know it (or something like it) is coming. But whereas a punch in the gut always feels pretty fresh—it never gets old, if you know what I mean—“Black Sea” does feel somewhat stale.