Black Sea [Blu-ray] [2014]

I PASSED OVER THIS MOVIE, MANY TIMES. I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE BORING. I WAS WRONG. GOOD STORY, GOOD ACTING. IT NEVER GETS BORING. IT'S A GOOD WATCH.

Claustrophobic underwater gem. Recommended.

Great performances!

Enjoyable enough as a film. Well known actors and a traditional plot on board an old soviet sub.

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.

This is not Crimson Tide or the much older Grey Lady Down or U-571 by any stretch of the imagination. This is much smaller scale production and TV movie. But in my view, it's also a more personal encounter, that has laid off salvage workers taken to steal a stash of gold buried on the sea bed. Or so they'd like to think.This movie is neither beneath nor above Jude Law's level of ability. If we go by what Ray Winstone once said, 'Just because you've been to Hollywood, doesn't mean TV movies are beneath you anymore.' And Russell Crowe pointed out once that he picks movies based on 'if the story and script make the hairs on the back of your neck stick out.' So a) it's not about the money, and b) it's not about Hollywood. Actors need to work, and they have a right to pick and choose which movies they take or don't, unless they're pre-contracted out to a certain studio etc.So, Law plays Captn' Robinson, a hard man with a scots accent, with a stern fisherman's, sea-fairer's, weather-worn complexion, a cast-iron will, but still a leader of men. But (on bad advice) the expedition they decide to take to get their lives back after being treated badly by the company that used to employ them doesn't go as planned.Two Crews (one British and the other Russian) set out on a very old, near-broken down sub, to get the stash of gold bullion located on board an old German Uboat on the sea bed. The mission is fraught with difficulties, unrest between the two crews, blackmail, plain lies, ulterior motives and in a more personal intense way still, I thought Captain Robinson himself haunted by his failed marriage (which he keeps having flash backs for). Robinson also takes an 18 year old with him, which is not to the liking of the Russian crew. That personal touch, makes a difference to the layers of the story, which would otherwise just be about greed. There are other subplots here too, but won't reveal, for being accused of being a spoiler.The computer graphics of the sub for outside shots, could have been better, and looked more convincing, but I guess with a tiny budget it was never going to be spot on. Jude Law comes across very convincingly, as do most of the other cast, the accents are a bit dodgy in places, as are the props, but overall this was a good movie.

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