Movie Review - Black Sea

Black Sea **½ (out of 5) (R) Director Kevin Macdonald has won many awards, including an Oscar, with a range from documentaries (One Day in September) to dramas (The Last King of Scotland). In this one, he tries to combine two seemingly incompatible genres - by setting a heist flick in a submarine. Not bad, but not likely to pad the Nominations column on his bio.

Jude Law is fired after 11 years at sea for his employer, a maritime salvage operator, and 30 years at the conn of naval and civilian subs. Based on possible findings of another pastured prole, he assembles a grizzled British and Russian crew to find a U-boat that supposedly contained at least $40 million in gold as a “loan” Hitler wheedled from Stalin before invading his country, anyway. It reportedly foundered in Soviet waters, forgotten in the chaos of WW II. The crew is sort of a Dirty Dozen from both sides of the Iron Curtain, replete with language barriers, character defects and an overabundance of distrust. Plus a giant dose of greed. They’re also stuck with one claustrophobic corporate weasel, minding the store for the rich guy financing the mission.

Such sagas are hard to film since the action is confined to severely cramped quarters. Suffice it to say that Dennis Kelly’s screenplay gets us rooting for the crew and maintains the suspense competently. We never get the highs that typically come from land-based crime capers like The Italian Job. On the cinematic side, the rusty bucket they patch up for the operation makes for drab viewing; same for the time spent trudging along the murky ocean floor. The ending is a plus, but overall there’s nothing about the entirety to compel one’s presence or absence. You won’t miss much by waiting for the DVD release. (1/30/15)