Thursday, May 25, 2023

Phantom (2013)

It's a Russian submarine movie, with Ed Harris as the epileptic captain with lots of regrets! All right!

For his last patrol, he's assigned his first sub, now a obsolete piece of crap the Soviets will subsequently gut and sell to China. He's also got a crew with a lot of sailors he doesn't know, and some hinky guys who brought technical equipment on board and keep overruling him. The leader of that bunch, Bruni, is played by David Duchovny with a smirking, dead-eyed confidence that makes you just want to punch him in the face. 

The equipment is designed to record the prop noises of other ships and then project them to fool American sonar. Sounds nifty, but the captain knows they'd never put that kind of equipment on a boat he captained. Especially not a piece of junk like this boat.

It's kind of Crimson Tide but with the Soviets. Bruni and his hardliners with a plan to actually "win" a nuclear war, versus the captain and his men, who find the whole idea horrifying. Lots of standoffs with people all pointing guns (always a risky proposition in a tight metal tube underwater), demanding things at gunpoint, people being herded into different sections of the ship.

Harris plays the captain as weary and almost disconnected at times. He's haunted by memories of past mistakes and hard decisions, while caught in a situation he knew stank from the very beginning. He leans against bulkheads or consoles for support, his shoulders are perpetually slumped, his dress jacket is left unbuttoned and hangs off him.

At the same time, he remarks to the ship's Party Officer that a captain without a boat is called 'a drunk". He's ready to retire, but also frightened of what that will leave him. He disappointed his father, and he's worried he's done the same to his daughter. Too afraid to actually ask her.

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