K-19: The Widowmaker Review
by Eugene Novikov (eugenen AT wharton DOT upenn DOT edu)August 7th, 2002
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
Starring Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, Steve Nicholson, Sam Redford, Ravil Issyanov, Tim Woodward, Peter Sarsgaard.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
Rated PG-13.
"No sailors in the history of the Motherland have been given such a boat."
Aside from being a nearly flawless submarine thriller, Kathryn Bigelow's K-19: The Widowmaker is an extraordinarily courageous movie, asking mainstream American audiences to sympathize with and accept a cast of protagonists made up entirely of self-proclaimed "good Communists." In fact, there isn't a single non-Russian character to be found here, and the only American entity to make an appearance is treated as the enemy. The fact that Bigelow was given $100 million to direct such a script is enough to restore one's faith in Hollywood.
The movie begins with the summary demotion of one Captain Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson) for putting the livelyhood of his boat and his crew ahead of the interests of Mother Russia. He is placed second in command to Captain Alexei Vostrikov (Harrison Ford) on the K-19, the biggest, most powerful nuclear submarine ever to sail. It is the height of the Cold War, and due to the Russian government's desperation for a boat such as the K-19 to simply be out there, it is rushed out to sea, overlooking the unfixed problems that plagued it in dry dock.
It is not technically wartime, so the movie must make do with other forms of hostility to generate tension. The crew's allegiance still belongs to Polenin, not Vostrikov, and when the latter pushes the boat and its men to the breaking point, mutiny becomes a real possibility. As if human tensions on a nuclear sub weren't enough, the nuclear reactor begins to overheat, threatening to cause a nuclear explosion that could be misread as hostility rather than a technical malfunction (duh).
The inexperienced reactor officer brought on by Vostrikov comes up with a temporary solution that would involve sending men into the reactor compartment to do some heavy-duty welding. The men would ordinarily be required to wear radiation suits in the sealed area, but the boat has only chemical suits available which, according to one character, is the equivalent of raincoats. So Vostrikov, to whom the option of getting on lifeboats and abandoning ship is entirely unthinkable for fear of Russian technology being discovered by the American vessel nearby, decides to send the men in ten minute shifts which is enough to give each of them excruciating radiation poisoning.
Bigelow, a prodigiously skilled action director, ratchets the tension up to nearly absurd heights. Her movie works both as an involving battle of wills between two men accustomed to power, and as a harrowing race-against-time thriller. Bigelow doesn't shy away from the gruesome effects of radiation poisoning -- in all honesty, the film is much too disturbing for its PG-13 -- and her most significant accomplishment is putting us in the position of the men who see those effects on the men coming out and know that they are the next to go in.
It is silly, I agree, to have a movie filled with Russian characters speaking English and then give them all Russian accents, but you shake your head and move on. I bought Harrison Ford as Vostrikov. Though a heroic submarine commander may seem like a typical role for him, he really hasn't done a lot of work like this; the role requires him to be brooding, nasty and unrelenting before he has a chance to lead a willing crew. And though I think Neeson looks laughable in that triangular hat -- his head is literally too big -- he is well-matched against Ford and well-cast as a dedicated man whose loyalties must be tested.
Submarine thrillers may no longer be the groundbreakers that Das Boot was, but they are still remarkably fertile ground for tensions both technical and human. K-19: The Widowmaker suffers only in its closing scenes, giving perhaps too much tribute to the heroics of its characters, but every moment that we are aboard the Widowmaker itself is riveting action cinema, even if everyone does have a phony Russian accent.
Grade: A-
Up Next: Stuart Little 2
©2002 Eugene Novikov
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