WASHINGTON — Wolfgang Petersen created an all-time movie classic in “Das Boot” (1981).
But if you were to examine the plot of Jude Law’s new movie, you might call it “Das Loot.”
That’s because “Black Sea” follows a gruff submarine captain (Law) who’s hired by a shadowy backer to search the Black Sea for a sunken World War II sub rumored to be loaded with gold.
It’s the latest from Scottish director Kevin Macdonald, who won an Oscar for the documentary “One Day in September” (1999), then coached Forest Whitaker to an Oscar in “The Last King of Scotland” (2006). More recently, he directed Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, Robin Wright, Jason Bateman, Jeff Daniels and Viola Davis in “State of Play” (2009).
The journalism thriller was Macdonald’s last time here in D.C. In fact, Macdonald spent so much time at The Washington Post that he gifted his cast and crew a special copy of “All the President’s Men” (1976) signed by Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and the late Ben Bradlee.
“(Bradlee) was an incredible guy,” Macdonald tells WTOP. “I had dinner with him once and met him at another occasion at a party. He was already a pretty elderly guy, but incredibly opinionated, smart, funny, exactly what an old-time newspaper editor ought to be like. He lived up to the hype.”
Now, Macdonald is showing his versatility by helming an entirely different genre, or “sub” genre.
“It was my idea actually. I wanted to make a submarine movie,” says Macdonald, who read Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” as a kid: “It’s a genre I love.”
Macdonald rattled off a list of his favorite sub flicks: Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in Robert Wise’s “Run Silent, Run Deep” (1958); Sean Connery and Sam Neill in John McTiernan’s “The Hunt for Red October” (1990); Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman in Tony Scott’s “Crimson Tide” (1996); and his personal favorite, the German gem “Das Boot,” which was nominated for six Oscars.
Macdonald got the idea for “Black Sea” after reading about the Kursk disaster in August 2000, in which a Russian submarine sunk to the bottom of the Barents Sea. Several submariners survived for days with pockets of oxygen, but the time rescuers arrived, they were dead.
“I thought, that’s got to be one of the worst deaths you can possibly imagine,” he says. “But I thought also, maybe there’s a movie in there about people trapped on the bottom of the ocean in a submarine. … I thought it would be interesting if they weren’t military; they’re not naval people. What if they’re looking for treasure? So it turned into this heist/action/adventure movie.”
The “Black Sea” characters are all ex-navy. Half speak English, half Russian. After a series of accidents, the men are forced to confront not only nature, but each other — and themselves.
“It’s man against the elements, man against nature, which always makes a great story,” Macdonald says. “Space movies are like that too, you know, ‘Gravity’ or ‘Interstellar.’ A big part of the attraction is it’s people who are somewhere they shouldn’t be. … There’s death all around you. There’s nothing around you but cold, dark death.”
Macdonald uses the specter of death to his advantage, sending the men out into the ocean in diving suits tethered to the vessel in an underwater mission that feels a lot like a spacewalk.
Back on the sub, the claustrophobia is palpable. That’s because the first two weeks of the film were shot inside an actual Russian diesel sub from the 1960s. Turns out, a British collector bought one for $100,000 and rents it out for various events at the mouth of the River Thames.
“I think all the crew and all the cast really felt what it was like to be in a real sub. You close the hatch and you could be 200 meters down,” Macdonald says. “In some ways, in this movie, [directing] was easier than it normally is, because you’ve got no choice where to put the camera.”
The rest was shot on a studio lot in London and an underwater tank at Pinewood Studios.
“When I got onto the set, I could have removed the wall and swung the camera around, but I decided not to,” Macdonald says. “I decided what’s great is the claustrophobia. … The claustrophobia does interesting things to characters. You put people together in a confined space and friction begins. … I think it really affected the performances in that indefinable sort of way.”
Law’s performance is the most authentic of them all. Like Harrison Ford in Kathryn Bigelow’s “K-19: The Widowmaker” (2002), Law must command a malfunctioning vessel. Like Charles Laughton in “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935), he must tamp down the uprisings of an unruly crew. And like Captain Ahab in “Moby Dick,” he must grapple with the obsession of his greedy pursuit.
In order to become Captain Robinson, Law spent five days on a real Royal Navy submarine in the Mediterranean Sea. He transformed himself physically, putting on muscle in his forearms and back, growing out facial hair for a scruffy chin, and shaving his head for a receding hairline. He also transformed vocally, dropping his voice by half an octave and adopting a blue-collar Scottish accent.
“This part is Jude Law like you’ve never seen him before,” Macdonald says. “Jude kind of persuaded me when I met him to talk about it. I went in a bit skeptical. It’s so different than who he is, but a bit like Forest Whitaker, I came out feeling like, wow, this guy is going to give me something incredible.”
Macdonald knows full well that casting against type can pay off.
“Forest Whitaker was known as this kind of sweet, slightly lumbering, kind of gentle guy, and everyone was so amazed that he did this scary, dark performance (in “The Last King of Scotland”). I think there’s something really fun about doing that and working with an actor who’s going to do something totally different and surprise people.”
If anyone doubts Law’s versatility, “Black Sea” is your answer. While the film is a riveting showcase for Jude Law, the script occasionally sputters with Murphy’s Law, the notion that anything that could go wrong does. Things blow up. The sub veers off course. Men lash out at each other. Things blow up again. After a while, the domino effect of disaster feels forced and far-fetched.
But in this particular genre, on this particular journey, Macdonald is an effective captain, steering his cinematic vessel through the dangerous depths of a tricky genre with Law as his trusty first mate.
“Black Sea” may not dive deep enough to claim the elusive gold next Oscar season.
But it’s a thrilling adventure and a nice January surprise.
★ ★ ★
The above rating is based on a 4-star scale. See where this film ranks in our Fraley Film Guide. Follow WTOP Film Critic Jason Fraley on Twitter @JFrayWTOP, read his blog The Film Spectrum, listen Friday mornings on 103.5 FM and see a full list of his stories on our “Fraley on Film” page.
