Black Sea

Continuing the quest on conquering my IMDb watchlist of various films I intend to see, I thought I'd see what Kevin Macdonald had to offer with Black Sea that was released in 2014. To my shame, I have still yet to see Das Boot but had enjoyed the submarine 90s action films that consist of The Hunt For Red October and Crimson Tide.

With those three films all focusing on the military, Black Sea falls more into the heist film category which must the first for this genre. The story sees a group of mismatched submarine workers who have lost their jobs but intend to put their skills to good use by stealing nazi gold from a sunken U-boat. Jude Law, along with a Scottish accent, heads up the team on a creaky sub that consists of an uneasy mixture of Brits and Russian workers. Now I'm not one to always make pun but let's just say the pressure starts to get to them, get it?

At the helm (it's too easy, I swear), Macdonald seemed like a good choice given his work on the nerve-shredding Touching The Void and also with The Last King of Scotland. That said, I feared this could go either way as I didn't really care for the well received State of Play and The Eagle was a mixed bag. And unfortunately Black Sea falls into the same traps as The Eagle. Both start strong and establish the characters before the main story begins, but fail somewhere at the final hurdle with a messy ending.

Before the end of the final act arrives, everything before was a fairly entertaining thriller that makes the most of its claustrophobic setting. While I can't comment on Jude Law's accent, he can't be criticised for holding back and gives a good performance even though the story could have provided him with more opportunities. We're meant to believe the gold is having some affect on his leadership but if anything, he's one of the most sane men aboard the vessel. Supporting cast members that include Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn, who keeps popping up, are all decent but are confined to being the money man, the old hand, the crazy one etc and this prevents it from standing out from the competition. Adding insult to injury, much of the drama sparks from a rather silly scene and just serves a purpose to heighten the conflict.

Even with those criticisms, I still found enjoyment when watching Black Sea and Macdonald's direction managed to create a white-knuckled ride. If only the ending was a little stronger then I could truly recommend it but if you enjoy submarine action films, there is still enough to warrant testing the water.