Black Sea [Blu-ray]

Where to begin?This movie is well shot. Cast is loaded with recognizable faces. Excellent CGI work. And that's where they must have run out of money to get a writer with more than six active brain cells.This movie surpasses stupidity.Huge issues to address:1. The plot is set up to be thrown in your face in the first five minutes of the movie.2. After they've snapped the clutch on this nautical spin on the gold heist trope, they sort of just find an investor and an old Foxtrot class sub that they can just kind of "have".3. The crew choice was dangerously toxic.4. These idiots can spend "months" getting the boat working with a mixed language crew and apparently a free supply of spare parts. But as soon as they put to sea they just start killing each other.5. Who knew a mention of a fuel leak would lead to a fireball? Haven't seen that one before. Who cares if diesel fuel doesn't ignite from sparks?6. The diesel engines seem to run all the time, even submerged.7. They have to avoid detection by the Black Sea Fleet. This is imperative to their success....ten minutes later they're swinging a steel girder on chains into the hull to generate sound waves. Black Sea Fleet don't care.8. Wouldn't you know that the boat would have a critical failure RIGHT NEXT to the sunken U-boat they were looking for? I mean honestly, how neat is that? Of course the fireball of exploding diesel fuel was enough to snap the exposed (and unlubricated crankshaft), leave every other piece of equipment in the compartment right down to the glass in the gauges.9. Halfway though the second act, the term "crankshaft" is switched to "driveshaft". Its like a script edit was done sloppily.10. INSERT CLICHE SWASTIKA REVEAL. It seems to be painted on the side of the hull below the water line based on how they come up on the wreck. Most if not all U-boats had their individual flotilla markings on the conning tower where it would be visible, not on the side of the hull. Stupid. But check another cliche box.10. I DONT GET THIS. I REALLY DONT GET THIS- WHY IS THE UBOAT HULL COMPLETELY DRY? HOW DID THEY GET INSIDE WITH DIVING GEAR WITHOUT FLOODING IT. EVEN IF THE CONNING TOWER THEY Eto as a "driveshaft". NTERED WAS USED AS A DIVERS TRUNK, THEY'D HAVE TO OPERATE THE U-BOAT'S PUMPS TO ENTER THE CONTROL ROOM DRY. At any rate, no shipwreck no matter HOW WELL it was built would remain dry on the inside on the seabed for 70+ years. Considering it sank in the first place...it was damaged. Somehow. Seems fine on the outside. Inside is like a museum. Add the obligatory Nazis went crazy and became cannibals theme too. Gotta have that. Not even mold. Bodies decayed to perfectly articulated skeletons. White cloth in the shirts didn't even stain during decomposition. Freakin' amazing how science works.10.5. Check the box for the "last man alive died guarding the gold" cliche. Gotta have that one too.11. They state that the sub they have (Foxtrot) was based on the U-boat design. Therefore the crankshaft will be a direct fit with a little modification. Oh-freakin' kay. Where to start unpacking that load of crap. The U-boat in the movie is barely described, but from the schematic shown in one scene (oddly showing the U-651 which sank off of Iceland...) its a Type VIIc. No postwar subs were based on the design. The first proper postwar Soviet subs, the Zulu and Whiskey classes WERE partially based on the German Type XXI, but no matter how similar the design, you're not stealing a crankshaft from a WW2 U-boat wreck and shoving it into the engine of a Foxtrot sub.12. Nothing is connected to the driveshafts shown in the movie. Not a conn rod in sight. No oil. Just "yep, here it is". No oil. They take the shaft but don't bother with taking the main bearings or anything like that. I mean, the Foxtrot has THREE diesels, so why they insist on repairing a single one to then just run while they're underwater far below snorkel depth just makes NO SENSE.13. The gold is so heavy that the inexplicably convenient winch on the sub has trouble pulling it on a cart. Yet two old farts and a kid in diving gear can carry out FOUR TONS of gold, stack it on a cart with tiny wheels, drag it across a soft bottom, then lift all four tons of gold brick by brick back into the torpedo tubes above their heads to get it back into the Foxtrot. What? When a character talks about putting a bar in his escape suit, he's told he won't get to the surface if he does. Two minutes later, Jude Law sends an escape suit filled with about two million dollars worth of gold bars and it floats. I really don't get why every movie except Goldfinger that deals with large amounts of gold seems to forget how INCREDIBLY HEAVY IT IS.End rant. This movie sucked. Don't waste your time.

Except for a little unnecessary foul (filthy) language - the plot was very entertaining. Lots of action - good realism and everybody has a chance to get into the act (so to speak). Has enough twists and turns to keep you sticking with the action. If you like deep sea (submarine type) adventure movies - then this a must for you. It's not what you expect - but that's where the movie shines - it delivers more with acting and not just the excellent special effects. You wont be disappointed here.

The plot of this film very much depends on the negative public sentiment and mistrust of banks and big business in general which is strangely not in vogue as much in 2018, but in 2014 when Black Sea was released, memories were more fresh of the 07-09 financial crisis and public resentment was much stronger than it is today. Thus, Robinson (Jude Law) a submarine pilot who has just been fired from his job at a marine salvage yard puts a team together to recover millions of dollars worth of gold bars that sank to the bottom of the Black Sea inside a German U-boat. This is a very compelling story that has few moments without tension present. I highly recommend this film.

Great movie line, but unfortunately whomever directed and/or wrote this knew little about piston powered submarines, engines, diving, anything mechanical, or naval. To the uniformed it was probably entertaining, but for me it was a constant barrage against my common sense. You don’t run Diesel engines while submerged, etc., etc., etc. Electric motors don’t use crankshafts. Perhaps I am more mechanically inclined than the target audience. Lots of gritty drama and great acting redeem this flic somewhat.

NOTE: DON'T watch the trailer. It gives away too much.Take a chance and go deep. 90 meters below the black sea, where a U-Boat full of gold sits. Yes there are cliches, including the cowardly lawyer lifted from Aliens for one, but generally the script and direction and acting overcome them with vigor. What the director understands is what is important in the story. The set up scenes are strong yet concise, whereas in most movies of this type you're half way in before anything happens. But the best thing about the movie is the acting. Having just seen Jude Law in "SPY" you will be astonished at how he lives in the skin of a character who is entirely different. He reminds me of a young Michael Caine, and that is a compliment. Credit to almost everyone else in the cast (I didn't like the "virgin" kid, but that's just me). The Russians and Brits here are so convincing you totally buy into the story and the inevitable conflicts. Don't know why this film didn't get more attention. Far better than most recent Hollywood action movies.

This is a good under-the-water adventure film. I think it makes the viewer very happy that he/she is not on that sub...regardless of how much gold there might be at the end of the rainbow, or at 20,000 leagues under the sea, even. Good picture. Some of the acting might seem a little stilted, but here I'm nit-picking. Recommend watching this flick as a whole production; it's quite good, even if there are some technical question marks, but hey, I've been a design engineer for many years, so take the comment with a few grains of salt. Sit and enjoy Black Sea. Jude Law, as almost always gives a very good performance.

Bear with the long setup and once the crew gets to the submarine it’s an outstanding little action/adventure movie with some nice twists. I’d saw it’s somewhere between The Deep and Hunt for Red October and for those that find fault with what can really be done and what’s done in this movie should not watch it because there are some stretches and leaps. The greed undertones and how it works on the crew is also interesting as is how they got to be doing what they’re doing. Much better than I thought it would be so disengage your brain and just enjoy it.

Laid off with a shrug and paid off with a pittance, Scottish salvage boat skipper Jude Law sits embittered in the pub: “I lost my family to this job.” And he won’t get them back down at the Job Centre. But rumours of a wartime U-boat sitting on the seabed in disputed Georgian waters prompts him to assemble a scrapheap crew of Brits and Russians – the story goes Stalin stuffed this sub with gold bars to appease Hitler. Equal shares for all, promises Law. Ben Mendelsohn thinks this is a bad idea; men will kill to cut the odds on a pay out. Setting sail from Sevastopol in a barnacled Soviet-era tub, a ship of fools dreaming of gold. After graduating from brilliant documentaries (One Day in September and Touching the Void) to bracing fiction (State of Play and Centurion) via the ‘real-life’ drama of The Last King of Scotland, director Kevin Macdonald cranks up the claustrophobic tension on a cramped and creaky sub lit ominously from below with hellish reds and seasickly greens. “This wreck’s going to sink,” says Scoot McNairy, unmindful of the way submarines actually work. Side-scraping suspense is assured in such a set-up, and violence is not long in breaking out among the combustible crew. Brutal and grungy enough to qualify as a non-supernatural cousin to the heavy-metal salvage horror Ghost Ship, Black Sea’s gripping gallows humour falters only in a couple of character arc inconsistencies. As the waters get choppier and the crew gets stroppier, Mendelsohn and Law seem to swap personalities. A sentimental postscript reeks of script tinkering, too.

Captain Robinson' (Jude Law) a formal naval officer has been working as a submarine Captain for a salvage company forthe past ten years or so, suddenly finds his services are no longer required, receiving a small cheque in severance payleaves 'Robinson' somewhat at a loss to what his future holds.He'd long since lost his family, blaming this upon the work-load that he'd undertaken for the salvage company.One of his friends comes up with what at first seems a hair-brained idea to go treasure hunting....it seems that during WW2a U-Boat ladened with a cargo of gold had failed to reach it's designated destination, so the U-Boat and cargo lies at thebottom of the Black Sea.The operation has to be financed and a submarine made available, a sponsor readily comes forward....The 'Captain' will need a crew, he turns to former naval colleagues along with a few Russian Seamen that are needed becauseof the port and locations needed for the search.The Submarine that has been acquired for the venture looks to be a rust-bucket, a decommissioned vessel, however still functional.The search for the lost gold begins........However, the dysfunctional crew are soon at odds with each other...'The Captain will learn that planned arrangements are not as he believed them to be...The film is a whole lot better than i'd been led to believe, though a film critic i rarely take notice of, actually got it right in my view.The film has plenty of tension along the way with a measure of violent action and the usual dose of colourful language, i believethat if like myself one watches it with no preconceived expectations either way most viewers will enjoy the movie.Good Picture and Sound Quality.Features -* Featurette - A dive into the Black Sea* Feature Commentary with Director Kevin Macdonald

Black Sea is quite watchable for a couple of hours entertainment and certainly has plenty of excitement. Some points I picked up on though:The German Sub has been sitting at the bottom of the sea for 70 years, I can accept that due to no oxidation it has survived intact, but what is very odd is how they manage to get on board an airtight sub with no power? Even if it did have an airlock they could access doesn't it need a power source to empty the water out and equalize the pressure?The end sequence shows their sub at a depth beyond 300 meters, how come at this depth they are able to go outside in an escape suit? As I understood it you would need a specially hardened diving suit for this depth of water. A quick Wiki check backs this up - escape suits do exist but are useful only down to 183 meters.How come Jude Law's hand picked team are at each others throats constantly? With a common goal wouldn't it make much more sense to bury any differences rather than trying to bury each other as they all seem so intent on doing.As other reviewers have mentioned some of the CGI is less than perfect but nothing I couldn't live with.One of the guys gets his belt caught in a bulk head door, did he not think of taking his trousers off? Looking daft has got to be better than drowning.So some issues, but I still found it quite good fun to watch.

Black Sea is a good, solid, claustrophobic, underwater thriller with a quality cast on good form.Jude Law sports an odd, gruff Scottish accent throughout as Captain Robinson, a recently laid off submarine captain. The film wastes no time in throwing us a dose of exposition - detailing a lost Nazi sub from WWII which was apparently sunk whilst transporting a LARGE amount of gold. Our boy puts together a misfit crew of salty sea dogs to man a decrepit sub in search of the booty. Think Kelly's Heroes but without quite the same sense of fun, it's a colder, grittier affair.It's good stuff though - as you might imagine, things don't don't quite go according to plan (in so many ways) and we're soon left with serious, sweaty tension in the spirit of some of the better sub movies you may have seen. Once you get used to the accent, Law is actually pretty good as the main man with solid support from the likes of Scoot McNairy (weaselly, whiny) Ben Mendelsohn (edgy, menacing) and David Threlfall (old, wheezy) amongst others.It's ably steered by director Kevin Macdonald, adding another good effort to his growing list of eclectic directing credits. Recommended.

A film that slowly leads you to tragedy. It's very well done but, aside from the beginning, a long and brilliant intro to get you ready for action, it seems, at a certain point, not to have much new to say. And it's when you think it's going to be just another good but common submarine film, that it strikes you with a great ending, where all actors, not just a fantastic Jude Law (who I rather prefer now) shows a damn good dramatic presence. Kevin MacDonald, after all, is not a pop-corn director (Last king of Scotland, State of Play) and he does not spoil himself with many films (he also shot very interesting documentaries like The Enemy of my enemy). Blu ray quality is excellent