I love bargain bin movies. Well, sometimes. Sometimes they can bite you square in the ass with a "you get what you paid for, and you paid 49 cents for me" situation, but sometimes you get lucky. I was lucky enough to recently come across a whole bunch of cheap movies at a local game store that also sold previously owned DVDs for a reasonable price. Now, I'm not expecting these to be good, but I had a feeling that they wouldn't hurt me too badly. Two of them happened to be Rutger Hauer films, and two of the others looked to be bootlegs of chop-socky flicks from Hong Kong, as well as "Onichanbara: The Live Action Movie." For those uninformed, that is known in the States as "Samurai Bikini Zombie Squad." And yes, they made a movie. Don't worry, I'll get to it eventually.
I had the urge for some Rutger Hauer manliness this evening, so I popped in what was the most grounded-in-reality of the two, "Hostile Waters," a TV movie HBO and the BBC made in good old 1997. The other was "Crossworlds" which looked like Rutger Hauer meets "Sliders," which honestly sounds amazing, but I was in a Tom Clancy mood. I wanted to see how well HBO could rip off "The Hunt For Red October." Oooo, and it's got Martin Sheen! Neato.
I guess the first thing you'd probably ask is: how well does it rip off "The Hunt For Red October?" The answer is "pretty well for a TV movie with I'm guessing a fifth of the budget." Like most submarine movies, most of the action involves a bunch of sweaty guys standing around in a small room with a bunch of flashing lights as they yell orders into a headset, and every once in a while the stage tilts to the left and everyone throws themselves to that side of the room. You know. Sub movies.
I know that's not giving it quite the credit it deserves but let's not kid ourselves, there are only so many things you can do with a submarine movie, and if you've seen one, you've pretty much seen all of them. Just watch "Das Boot" and you've pretty much seen the epitome of it, and everything else is just kind of a retread of that film in a different time period. "The Hunt For Red October" is probably second on the list just because it made the whole "this thing can blow up the universe" aspect popular.
Truthfully, I would still rather watch this any day.
Back to "Hostile Waters," though. The film is the reportedly true story of an incident in the late 80's when an American sub grazed the Russian sub it was tracking. The Russian sub began having buku problems which ended with such fun things as the nuclear warheads threatening to blow up to the reactor threatening to meltdown. It wasn't a good day aboard K-219.
The film touts the fact that it has an all star cast including not only Hauer and Sheen, but also Max Von Sydow. Truthfully, it's really Hauer's show as Sheen, who plays the American sub commander, isn't in it nearly enough for my liking. Of course this makes sense since the drama is unfolding on the Russian sub, and it really doesn't make much sense to focus on the guy who's only job in the film is to agonize over whether or not to pull the trigger and blow the Russian sub up. Pro-Tip: That would make Russia mad. Yeah, that's good drama, but Hauer has the more interesting and intense of the two stories.
Max Von Sydow is barely in it enough to qualify. He probably filmed his scenes on his lunch break. It's like Donald Sutherland in "Horrible Bosses" or Richard Dreyfus in "Piranha." They're in those movies for like a minute and a half. Or Christopher Lee in Tim Burton's version of "Sleepy Hollow," where his part in the movie is literally done before his name shows up in the opening credits! Von Sydow is in it for a bit longer than that, but it really could have been anyone.
A more notable cameo role that I geeked out over was Dominic Monaghan as one of the Russian sailors. That's right, Meridoc Brandybuck himself is in this movie, and it was actually his first film role. The dude only has like 2 lines, tops, but he's a heavily featured extra. Hell, they give him a lot of screen time for a dude in his first movie, including some emotional closeups. I guess props to the filmmakers for spotting talent.
"If I die, what will happen to me band? Driveshaft, by the way. Maybe you've heard of us?"
Of course, at the end of the day what makes or breaks the movie is going to be Rutger himself. I suppose if you don't like him, it's not going to work for you, but I think he's pretty good. But one can not look at this performance and not compare it to Sean Connery. Both of them are playing Russian sub skippers, both of them are being pursued by Americans, both get in really big trouble which threatens nuclear war, and neither one gave the slightest attempt at an accent of any kind. Now for Sean Connery, it kind of works because he is, in fact, the Supreme Badass of the Multiverse, and like the great Craig Ferguson once said of him, he's not an actor, he's a movie star! Rutger doesn't have that privilege of getting away with that, so it's a bit more noticeable, but by the end, it really doesn't matter. At least he doesn't half ass it with a bad accent. He just doesn't try, which is probably a smarter move.
Even if you're just waiting for Sean to storm in at any moment and yell, "Shun, you call that a mushtash? It looksh like a wee rat with irritable bowelsh!"
Back to "Hostile Waters," though. The film is the reportedly true story of an incident in the late 80's when an American sub grazed the Russian sub it was tracking. The Russian sub began having buku problems which ended with such fun things as the nuclear warheads threatening to blow up to the reactor threatening to meltdown. It wasn't a good day aboard K-219.
The film touts the fact that it has an all star cast including not only Hauer and Sheen, but also Max Von Sydow. Truthfully, it's really Hauer's show as Sheen, who plays the American sub commander, isn't in it nearly enough for my liking. Of course this makes sense since the drama is unfolding on the Russian sub, and it really doesn't make much sense to focus on the guy who's only job in the film is to agonize over whether or not to pull the trigger and blow the Russian sub up. Pro-Tip: That would make Russia mad. Yeah, that's good drama, but Hauer has the more interesting and intense of the two stories.
Max Von Sydow is barely in it enough to qualify. He probably filmed his scenes on his lunch break. It's like Donald Sutherland in "Horrible Bosses" or Richard Dreyfus in "Piranha." They're in those movies for like a minute and a half. Or Christopher Lee in Tim Burton's version of "Sleepy Hollow," where his part in the movie is literally done before his name shows up in the opening credits! Von Sydow is in it for a bit longer than that, but it really could have been anyone.
A more notable cameo role that I geeked out over was Dominic Monaghan as one of the Russian sailors. That's right, Meridoc Brandybuck himself is in this movie, and it was actually his first film role. The dude only has like 2 lines, tops, but he's a heavily featured extra. Hell, they give him a lot of screen time for a dude in his first movie, including some emotional closeups. I guess props to the filmmakers for spotting talent.
"If I die, what will happen to me band? Driveshaft, by the way. Maybe you've heard of us?"Of course, at the end of the day what makes or breaks the movie is going to be Rutger himself. I suppose if you don't like him, it's not going to work for you, but I think he's pretty good. But one can not look at this performance and not compare it to Sean Connery. Both of them are playing Russian sub skippers, both of them are being pursued by Americans, both get in really big trouble which threatens nuclear war, and neither one gave the slightest attempt at an accent of any kind. Now for Sean Connery, it kind of works because he is, in fact, the Supreme Badass of the Multiverse, and like the great Craig Ferguson once said of him, he's not an actor, he's a movie star! Rutger doesn't have that privilege of getting away with that, so it's a bit more noticeable, but by the end, it really doesn't matter. At least he doesn't half ass it with a bad accent. He just doesn't try, which is probably a smarter move.
Even if you're just waiting for Sean to storm in at any moment and yell, "Shun, you call that a mushtash? It looksh like a wee rat with irritable bowelsh!"
"What? Moments lost in time? Tears in rain? Listen, I don't have time for this. Sean Connery is here and he's insulting my facial hair. No, I have no idea how he got on the ship, he's magic or some crap..."
BOTTOM LINE - If you've seen one submarine movie before, particularly "The Hunt For Red October," this will seem very, very familiar territory. However, it's still a decent flick with some pretty good tension going on. Give it a try if you can get it for cheap.
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