Main Cast: Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, Peter Sarsgaard, Joss Ackland, John Shrapnel
Release Year: 2002
Country: US
Run Time: 138 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
A real-life historical incident becomes the basis for this military thriller from director Kathryn Bigelow that's reminiscent of such submarine dramas as Das Boot (1981), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Crimson Tide (1995), and U-571 (2000). Harrison Ford stars as Captain Alexi Vostrikov, a Russian naval officer who's being given command of the Soviet Union's first nuclear submarine, K-19, at the height of the Cold War in 1961. The vessel's previous commander, Captain Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson) has been demoted to executive officer following a botched test and his outspoken assertions that the flagship is not yet ready for deployment, but he curbs his resentment and resolves to serve his new superior well. Polenin's concerns are well founded: parts are not yet installed, equipment is missing, and the ship's doctor is killed in an auto mishap. Political pressure forces Vostrikov to sail his crew into the North Atlantic anyway, for a missile fire test that serves as a warning to the U.S. that its enemy is now its technological equal. The test is a success, but a disastrous leak in the K-19's reactor cooling system soon threatens to create enough heat to detonate the craft's nuclear payload -- which would certainly be mistaken for the first salvo in a worldwide atomic exchange and spark the beginning of World War III. With no other option, Vostrikov orders his men to repair the damage in ten-minute shifts, irradiating them hopelessly. The conflict between the seemingly bureaucratic Communist Vostrikov and the more humane Polenin escalates, until a surprising twist reveals where both officers' loyalties truly lie. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Review
A tightly paced and efficiently performed submarine thriller about which there is absolutely nothing original save the fact that the protagonists are Russian, this epic-scale production will satisfy only those who have never seen any other military suspense drama set aboard a submersible. For those who have seen such films as Crimson Tide (1995), U-571 (2000), Das Boot (1981), The Hunt for Red October (1990) and a host of other noble men-trapped-in-tin-cans-below-the-sea nail biters, K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) will feel like a rehash at best. Despite its obvious craftsmanship, the only truly intriguing aspect of this bloated production is the science involving the boat's near-nuclear meltdown and the sacrifice that must be made by her engineers to save the rest of the crew and, potentially, the world. Talk about heightening the crisis--but none of these heroic characters are the protagonist. Instead, the audience is treated to a dog-eared soap opera involving the bruised feelings of a demoted skipper (Liam Neeson) and his conflict with a hard-headed political appointee (Harrison Ford), whose determination and bullish single-mindedness of purpose are never explained, leading to an unmotivated "duh!" of a character reversal that's supposed to play like a rousing, three-cheers moment. An overlong act three (the film feels as if it's about to end--and should--no less than three separate times) capped off with a cemetery coda cribbed from Schindler's List (1993) leaves the entire enterprise feeling enervated and top-heavy. K-19: The Widowmaker, in addition to its awful title, is celluloid proof of two things: that Hollywood exists solely to recycle and cannibalize itself, and that if the filmmakers haven't figured out who to root for, the audience certainly won't either. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Donald Sumpter - Dr. Savran; Tim Woodward - Konstantin Partonov; Steve Nicolson - Demichev; Ravil Isyanov - Igor Suslov; Christian Camargo - Pavel Loktev; William Lucas - Yuzef Mankevitch; George Anton - Konstantin Poliansky; Ingvar E. Sigurdsson - Viktor Gorelov; Tygh Runyan - Maxim Portenko; Peter Stebbings - Maxim Kuryshey; Shawn Mathieson - Stepan Komarov; Sam Spruell
Credit
Arvinder Grewal - Art Director, William Ladd Skinner - Supervising Art Director, Steve Danton - Associate Producer, Samara Koffler - Associate Producer, Winship Cook - Associate Producer, Mali Finn - Casting, Mary Selway - Casting, Ross Clydesdale - Casting, Steven Charles Jaffe - Co-producer, Mary Montiforte - Co-producer, Brent O'Connor - Co-producer, Basil Iwanyk - Co-producer, Mark Wolfe - Co-producer, Marit Allen - Costume Designer, Steve Danton - First Assistant Director, Kathryn Bigelow - Director, Walter Murch - Editor, Harrison Ford - Executive Producer, Moritz Borman - Executive Producer, Nigel Sinclair - Executive Producer, Guy East - Executive Producer, Klaus Badelt - Composer (Music Score), Christina Smith - Makeup, Michael Novotny - Production Designer, Karl Juliusson - Production Designer, Jeff Cronenweth - Cinematographer, Ed Feldman - Producer, Kathryn Bigelow - Producer, Joni Sighvatsson - Producer, Christine Whitaker - Producer, Carol Lavallee - Set Designer, Bruce Carwardine - Sound/Sound Designer, Capt. Sergei Aprelev - Technical Advisor, D. H. Buster Brown - Technical Advisor, Daniel Kubat - Technical Advisor, Louis Nowra - Screen Story, Christopher Kyle - Screenwriter, Gary Capo - Additional Cinematography, John Nelson - Visual Effects Supervisor, Bruce Jones - Visual Effects Supervisor, Joel Sill - Music Producer, Colin Chilvers - Special Effects Coordinator, Pat Jackson - Supervising Sound Editor, Industrial Light & Magic - Visual Effects, Santa Barbara Studios - Visual Effects, Mill Film - Visual Effects, Pacific Title Digital - Visual Effects, Gray Matter FX - Visual Effects
Klaus Badelt, who has contributed to such big-budget epics as Gladiator and Pearl Harbor without taking a main composer credit, finally gets his head on K-19: The Widowmaker, the Harrison Ford-starring story of Russia's first nuclear submarine, and he turns in a superior effort. It helps that he is using an established orchestra, the Kirov, which knows its way around the kinds of romantic classics he draws from. It also helps that his subject matter and the film's tone support such a traditional approach. Finally, on the soundtrack album, the music is allowed to develop more logically than it usually gets to onscreen because Badelt has arranged his main themes into a four-part "Suite for Orchestra and Chorus in G Minor" that runs nearly 16 minutes. Even in the more conventional cues that follow, Badelt is allowed fairly lengthy segments; the climactic "Missile Launch -- The Rescue" runs a full ten minutes. He uses the time to come up with majestic and melodic neo-classical music that seems as likely to work in the concert hall as in the movie theater. Meanwhile, the eight minutes given to Richard Einhorn for "Reactor Selections From 'Voices of Light'" allows him to use a chorus and Julia Migenes as soloist. The result is a cut above the usual orchestral soundtrack album, highlighting a score that sounds Oscar worthy. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Tracks
Track Title
Composers
Performers
Time
Suite for Orchestra and Chorus in G Minor: Fear -- Largo
Kathryn Bigelow Edward S. Feldman Sigurjon Sighvatsson
Christine Whitaker Co-Producer:
Basil Iwanyk
Steven-Charles Jaffe
Mary Montiforte
Brent O'Connor
Mark Wolfe Executive Producer:
Harrison Ford Moritz Borman Nigel Sinclair
Guy East
Dieter Nobbe
Volker Schauz
K-19: The Widowmaker is a fact-based fictional movie released on July 19, 2002,[2] about the first of many disasters that befell the Soviet submarine of the same name. The movie was directed by Kathryn Bigelow; the screenplay was written by Christopher Kyle, based on a story by Louis Nowra.[2]
This section requires expansion with:
plot summary.
In 1959, the Soviet Union launches its first nuclear submarine, the K-19 - nicknamed "The Widowmaker" due to many deaths that occurred during manufacturing. The ship is led by Captain Alexei Vostrikov (Harrison Ford), aided by executive officer Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson). One day, the ship's reactor cooling system starts to fail, leading the sailors to work together in order to both save the crew's lives as well as prevent a nuclear accident that could trigger World War III.
The film received mixed criticism with a total of 61% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. It is summarized as being "A gripping drama even though the filmmakers have taken liberties with the facts."[7]
When the film was premiered in Russia in October 2002, 52 veterans of the K-19 submarine accepted flights to the Saint Petersburg premiere; despite what they saw as technical and historical compromises, they praised the film and in particular the performance of Harrison Ford.[citation needed]
Historical accuracy
"The Widowmaker" nickname had only been used in the movie. In real life it had no nickname until the nuclear accident on 4 July, 1961, when she got her actual nickname "Hiroshima".
The producers made some efforts to work with the original crew of K-19, who took exception to the first version of the script available to them.[8] The submarine's captain presented an open letter to the actors and production team, and a group of officers and crew-members presented another. In a later script, several scenes were cut, and the names of the crew changed at the request of the crew-members and their families.
The most significant difference between the plot and the historical events is the scene that replaces an incident where the captain threw almost all the sub's small arms overboard out of concern about the possibility of a mutiny; the film instead portrays an actual attempt at mutiny.
