Crimson Tide (1995) – Review

When approaching a submarine movie, its wise to keep the nature of pressure in mind. Not just the incredible forces that diving to unfathomable fathoms will have on the groaning hull of your craft, but the strain being in a pressurised metal tube with have on the human beings serving within it – especially if there’s a bloody great war brewing on the surface.
With these issues on the table, we approach Tony Scott’s Crimson Tide, a movie bankrolled by super producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, that was billed to be the submarine war movie to end all submarine war movies. With one of the slickest visual directors around calling the shots, a powerhouse cast that contained more oomph than a nuclear payload and a plot that sees the crew of a military sub not just battling other undersea enemies, but each other when a break in communication slips them right down the middle. A pressure cooker scenario with extra pressure, then.

Some disturbing events are going down in post-Soviet Russia as civil war has broken out thanks to the efforts of a ultra nationalist rebel named Vladimir Radchenko. The world start to take him far more seriously when his rebels manage to take control of a nuclear missile installation and a couple of attack subs and before you know it, the world is engaged in the worst nuclear stand off since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Into these churning political waters heads the U.S.S. Alabama, a submarine laden with ballistic missiles that is to patrol until the order is given to launch nukes in a pre-emptive strike before disaster strikes. The commanding officer, grizzled veteran, Captain Frank Ramsay is the kind of hard-nosed sailor that runs a tight ship and follows orders to the letter, while his new XO, Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter, is a younger, more thoughtful man who believes that greater responsibility should lie with the men given the task of launching a nuclear weapon at an opposing country.
After a promising start, the cracks start to show between the two that’s only heightened when they get an Emergency Action Message telling them that the rebels may have the launch codes needed and are fuelling their nukes. However, after a close encounter with an enemy sub means that cuts off a later message mid-broadcast causes their issues to boil over as they disagree what the message fragment could actually mean. The headstrong Ramsay wishes to disregard it and launch their missiles as previously instructed, while the more cautious Hunter wants to risk detection in order to get the new messager authenticated.
With mutiny abound, enemy subs everywhere, a schism among the crew the size of the Atlantic ocean, both men engage in a battle of wills as the doomsday clock counts down to zero.

While certainly familiar with the military machine thanks to Top Gun, Tony Scott’s Ceimson Tide proved to be quite a different animal. While the actors involved still had scenes where they sweatily burbled out military-speak while illuminated by the primary colours of their instruments, Tony Scott realised that there’s a hell of a lot of difference between lightning fast fighter jets and nuclear subs – but while Top Gun would famously embrace a pilot who seemingly had no responsibility, Crimson Tide focuses on men who have way too much.
Honestly, you could have made a film featuring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman yelling at each other and set it anywhere and you’d still have the recipe for some superlative drama, but locking these characters in a sealed metal tube at the bottom of the ocean and then hanging the threat of nuclear holocaust over them proves to be the launch key that makes the tension nigh on unbearable. To state that both Washington and Hackman are superlative would be an understatement on the level as proclaiming sea water wet, but their beef is further heightened by issues that the script smartly refuses to directly address. On the surface, it’s all a matter of orders with some personally philosophical views thrown in to spice up the pot, but simmering beneath the waves are a clash of any number of things that may-or-may not be relevant depending on your personal opinions. The growing grudge between Ramasy and Hunter could be read as social issues such as a clash of class, age, race or all of the above if it takes your fancy, but the fact that the movie doesn’t actively state any of these things by name means that the film is free to concentrate of the right and wrongs of both arguments without choking the ambiguity. Simply put, both men are technically right and that’s what’s so fucking scary. “We’re here to preserve democracy, not practice it.” states Hackman at one point, but with a disaster hanging over us like the Nuke of Damocles, what actually is the right answer?

The supporting cast are also admirably up to the task, with such names as pre-Lord Of The Rings Viggo Mortensen and a pre-Sopranos James Gandolfini in the mix as the crew have to pick sides or enact personal betrayals as the clock mercilessly counts down.
However, seemingly emboldened by the performances he managed to get in True Romance, Scott seems to know he’s in exceptionally good hands and thus gets down to the business of making Crimson Tide the best looking submarine movie ever made, refusing to let those confining metal walls and tangled railings slow his visual roll and the camera sweeps majestically through the cramped sets in a way that only a Simpson/Bruckheimer production can. Also, the fact that the set is placed on a gimble, means that when the sub dives, the cast don’t have to lean to the side like an epidode of Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea and thus is impressively believable.
Some have felt that some of the script, rewritten in part by none other by Quentin Tarantino, gets a bit too pop culture-y with references to Captain Kirk and the Silver Surfer lumped in alongside barked orders and impassioned reasoning, seeming a bit out of place, but I’ve always found them genuinely humanising and any time things look to be getting too casual, Hans Zimmer’s score (one of the finest military scores in cinema history, in my opinion) keeps things nice and taunt.

Why any other opinions are welcome and valid, I strongly believe Crimson Tide to be the greatest submarine movie ever made as it combines various arcs, tension, sub battles and that always reliable sequence where a sub almost sinks too deep, in a way that feels fresh, new and agonisingly tense.
Scope it out. That’s an order.

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