On K List of Movie Reviews
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K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
6/25
6/25:
Am I being harsh by giving K-19: The Widowmaker a '5'?
Maybe. The first hour was never engaging, causing me to wonder what the point was supposed to be, although I wasn't
under any illusion this was going to be another Das Boot. Finally, the
conflict came when there was a radiation leak in the reactor coolant system due to rushed construction of the
submarine. So, the commanding officer, played by Harrison Ford, was forced to decide whether to fix it or abandon
the ship after going through brief heated battles with his executive officer (Liam Neeson) à la
Run Silent, Run Deep, not
Crimson Tide.
The incident eventually cost the lives of eight men within a few weeks and then fourteen more the next two
years because the submarine was full of radiation. Interestingly, in 2006, Mikhail Gorbachev nominated the
crew of K-19 for a Nobel Peace Prize. That would be equivalent to constructing a faulty building on your own
and then saving people in there afterwards when it started to fall apart.
In reality, the story is different; the failed bottle-breaking ceremony occurred in 1959. The submarine had
done a lot of sea trials for a year, starting in 1960, and then, there was the secret accident that happened
on July 4, 1961. It's not clear if launching an intercontinental ballistic missile caused the reactor coolant
system to break down as shown in the film. Either way, it was a welding mistake during construction that's the
primary reason why. The submarine had no nickname to begin with but got called "Hiroshima" afterwards. By the
way, the physical effects of radiation damage are actually worse than what's shown on screen.
All in all, Kathryn Bigelow wastes too much time going through the banalities in K-19: The Widowmaker
before finally getting to the bottom of it.