Hunter Killer
3 stars
Director: Donovan Marsh
Stars: Ethan Baird, Jacob Scipio, Dempsey Bovell
Duration: 121 mins
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd
Gerard Butler has a penchant for appearing in middling action movies, in which he plays the same square-jawed, one-dimensional character who is thrown into some totally ridiculous, world-threatening situation.
He usually gets to save theday and is usually the President of the United States (who really needs to upgrade his security detail). Hunter Killer is no different, although, this time, the president who needs saving is the one of Russia, caught up as he is in a conflict that takes place in the icy depths beneath the Arctic Circle in Russian waters.
The film opens as an American submarine stealthily stalks a Russian one – taking the ‘cold’ in Cold War to new depths. This operation ends in tragedy, however, as both subs are mysteriously attacked and destroyed.
The American Navy quickly sends in another sub to investigate. Under the command of Captain Joe Glass, the crew of USS Arkansas head back under the ice. But, in the meantime, back in Washington, National Security Agency and Pentagon officials notice a coup d’état taking place on a naval base in Russia close to the site of the missing submarines.
They send a black ops team to try and rescue the Russian president. On land and on the seabed, nerves of steel are challenged as both teams attempt to carry out their mission without provoking war. And so, as hostilities continue to rise between Russia and the US in real life, Hollywood action movies regurgitate their staple plot lines of the 1980s, which generally pitted the US and the then Soviet Union against one another.
This is no The Hunt for Red October or Crimson Tide, despite it having many similarities with both. Yet its underwater – and occasionally very claustrophobic – setting adds a modicum of genuine tension.
The film completely lacks the kind of droll humour often required to lighten things up a little
The film makes for an interesting enough drama to while away the time, and it is here that it is at its best, as the submarine negotiates its way through a booby-trap filled tunnel under the ice without alerting anyone of its presence.
Otherwise, the story is madly predictable and you are never in doubt of the outcome. The characters are all pretty unremarkable.
Glass is presented to us as some ‘rogue’ former marine. We first meet him hunting deer in a snowy landscape in a moment of supposed profundity, as he takes aim at his prey with his bow and arrow but decides not to when deer is joined by wife and baby.
What type of man this supposedly sets him up to be remains a mystery, as, from there on, he does little else but bark orders at his crew, say a few jingoistic lines, and clench his jaw as he has to make world-saving decisions.
The Russian president is played rather blandly by Alexander Diachenko; the uniformly bearded and rugged Toby Stephens, Michael Trucco, Zane Holtz and Ryan McPartlin play the four Navy Seals running around the Russian naval base; and Mikhail Gorevoy is the pantomime villainesque defence minister Dmitri Durov, the man behind the attempted coup.
The only saving grace is the late Michael Nyqvist, the Swedish actor who earned international acclaim following his role as investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist in the original Swedish Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy, and who sadly passed away earlier this year. He brings gravitas and depth to the film where otherwise none exists.
Also, as is the wont of films of this ilk, the accents are all over the place and language switches with no consistency. There are scenes between Russian characters where they speak to each other in English, while conversing in Russian in front of the American characters.
And, finally, the film completely lacks the kind of droll humour often required to lighten things up a little. And, in taking itself all too seriously, it only highlights the ridiculousness of it all.