Kursk: The Last Mission is an unusual mix of talents: director Thomas Vinterberg, best known as one of the leading lights of the ultra-realist Dogme 95 movement; screenwriter Robert Rodat, the scribe behind Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot; and a cast that mixes talents stretching from Matthias Schoenaerts to Léa Seydoux to Max von Sydow to Colin Firth. Tackling the tragic 2000 true story of the Russian submarine left stranded for seven days at the bottom of the Barents Sea following a series of explosions, Kursk: The Last Mission (titled The Command in the US) is an intermittently entertaining old-school disaster movie, helped by strong craft, hindered by on-the-nose writing and an overwhelming sense of the familiar.
It all starts very Deer Hunter, with the Kursk submarine crew enjoying bro hijinks and a big wedding before setting off for sea, shipman Mikhail Averin (Schoenaerts) saying goodbye to a pregnant wife (Seydoux) and young son. When it gets under the water and the accident occurs, the action flits between underwater survival situations (freezing to death, diminishing oxygen) and dry-land dramas as the Russians refuse help from the international community (aka Colin Firth in sensible knitwear) over sheer pride and the families fight for news of their loved ones, Seydoux getting some meaty scenes in the process.
Script-wise, it’s standard disaster-movie shenanigans (a Poseidon Adventure-style hold-your-breath swim told in one long epic take) with a little bit of old school World War I camaraderie (there’s a few sing-songs). But the action is enlivened by strong filmmaking. Alexandre Desplat’s spare score is impeccable and Vinterberg’s regular DP, Anthony Dod Mantle, makes the confines of a sub both constricting and beautiful. Vinterberg makes the interesting choice of bookending the film with a squeezed aspect ratio, only opening out in the close quarters of the sub that makes it simultaneously intimate and epic. It’s just a shame the power of the form is rarely matched by the potentially absorbing content.