Kevin Macdonald’s oceanbed-set Black Sea sends Jude Law and a crew of desperate, sweaty men into the murky depths in pursuit of sunken treasure. The film lands with us this December and has a first trailer to reveal some of its treasures.
A bit boy’s own adventure, a little desperate-treasure-hunt thriller, Black Sea’s storyline has shades of The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre meets Das Boot with a rogue’s gallery of double-crossers-in-waiting types. Law’s hired crew is an uneasy mix of Russian and English sailors, played by the likes of Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, David Threlfall, Night Watch’s Konstantin Khabenskiy, A Most Wanted Man’s Grigoriy Dobrygin and Michael Smiley, each less trustworthy than the last, each thirsting for booty. No, not that kind.
Leading this salty dozen is Jude Law’s captain, a man under pressure after losing his job at a salvage company. The temptations of a mysterious gig to find a sunken U-boat beneath the titular stretch of water are too great to resist; as, it turns out, are the deadly pressures of the job. Macdonald, who’s lately oscillated between features and documentaries, with a Marley bio followed up by apocalypse drama How I Live Now, looks a particularly safe good match for the material. His takes on The Last King Of Scotland and State Of Play both showed off his flair for doing the scrunchy- with our nerve endings. See his latest thriller on December 5.