K-19: The Widowmaker | | Cast : | Harrison Ford | | Director : | Kathryn Bigelow | | Studio : | Paramount Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | July 19, 2002 | | DVD Released Date : | August 19, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | May 29, 2005 | | Summary | Serving the Soviet Union, Comrade General! | Content
 | K-19 The Widowmaker is a great dramatic depiction of this real life event from 1961, when a Soviet nuclear sub almost had a meltdown. Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson rise to the occassion by making it believable and intense. Ford portrays the overly harsh commander and Neeson the captain in touch with the men. Probably the best submarine movie there is, especially when compared to the ridiculous "Crimson Tide" and "U-571". The cold war aspect pervades the film and the men heroically risk their lives stopping a nuclear meltdown. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 29, 2005 | | Summary | INDIANA WITH A RUSSIAN ACCENT | Content
| K-19 THE WIDOWMAKER is certainly earnest in its attempts to show the loyalties and courage of a motley crew of Russian submariners, but director Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark)shows no imagination in her limp and flaccid handling of this adventure tale. Since it's obvious the characters are Russian, why didn't she just let them speak in English instead of having reputable actors embarrass themselves with horrible accents. Peter Saarsgard as the noble Nuclear Reactor dude is the only performer who brings life to his role. Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson are abysmally ineffective, and by the time the movie reaches its overly sentimental ending, I was glad my investment of time in this klunker was over. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 10, 2005 | | Summary | Rivetting drama about the true lives of those on board K-19! | Content
| This is one of the best sub movies of all time, and shows courage and comraderie that lies with the Soviet Sailors who work in the worst of conditions, and also reveals that when the going gets tough, the irresponsible that are way up high cover it up!!
A real-life historical incident becomes the basis for this military thriller from director Kathryn Bigelow that's reminiscent of such submarine dramas as Das Boot (1981), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Crimson Tide (1995), and U-571 (2000). Harrison Ford stars as Captain Alexi Vostrikov, a Russian naval officer who's being given command of the Soviet Union's first nuclear submarine, K-19, at the height of the Cold War in 1961.
The vessel's previous commander, Captain Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson) has been demoted to executive officer following a botched test and his outspoken assertions that the flagship is not yet ready for deployment, but he curbs his resentment and resolves to serve his new superior well. Polenin's concerns are well founded: parts are not yet installed, equipment is missing, and the ship's doctor is killed in an auto mishap. Political pressure forces Vostrikov to sail his crew into the North Atlantic anyway, for a missile fire test that serves as a warning to the U.S. that its enemy is now its technological equal.
The test is a success, but a disastrous leak in the K-19's reactor cooling system soon threatens to create enough heat to detonate the craft's nuclear payload - which would certainly be mistaken for the first salvo in a worldwide atomic exchange and spark the beginning of World War III. With no other option, Vostrikov orders his men to repair the damage in ten-minute shifts, irradiating them hopelessly. The conflict between the seemingly bureaucratic Communist Vostrikov and the more humane Polenin escalates, until a surprising twist reveals where both officers' loyalties truly lie. |
| Rating | | | Date | September 13, 2004 | | Summary | Brave men, insane leaders | Content
| The Widowmaker - even before it was launched, it killed ten of its own crew and construction crew. Under-built, under-supplied, under-staffed, the K-19 submarine hovered on the edge of disaster every minute it was afloat.
Then it fell over the edge.
This is a movie about soldiers fighting a Cold War that was very real to them, as real as the torpedo in the cradle they sat next to. Their mission was sabotaged from the start, by the very political leaders they served, by the belief that political purity would overcome any failure of physical resources. (An offhand joke partway through said it all - about a cosmonaut whose air supply failed, and who wasn't loyal enough to the party to hold his breath.) Still, they did their jobs as soldiers, even walking into sure and painful death to save the rest of their crew.
This movie is a remarkable contrast to actual Cold War movies. The submarine crew is drawn sympathetically. Harrison Ford's character is a little deeper than the others, poised between party loyalty, a military sense of honor and duty, and a fatherly view of his crew.
This isn't the most complex role Ford has ever played. Still, he plays it well, as one expects. There is a bit of a coincidence, though. Ford is well on his way to being a grand old man of movies, much as Sean Connery has. Connery did his Russian submarine movie (Hunt for Red October), now Ford has done his. Is there some kind of a checklist that I don't know about?
This is a good movie. It's a look from the post-Soviet era back into the Cold War - however little shooting there may have been, it was a war nonetheless and this is a war movie. It doesn't glorify war, quite the opposite, but it does honor the soldiers stuck with the job of fighting it.
//wiredweird |
| Rating | | | Date | July 22, 2004 | | Summary | An experience | Content
| This film is an experience, watching it thinking that its based on something that happened is impressive. It is also nice to have a movie that doesn't need standard-hollywoody violence and action sequences.
But why do I give only 3 stars to it? Its because afterwards I made some investigation, the movie made me curious, and so I found that the surviving crewmembers in russia are not pleased with it. K-19 navigator Valentin Shabanov, 62, said: "Only two things in the film are true: the bottle of champagne did not break when the submarine was launched and yes, there was an accident with the reactor. The rest are tales from Uncle Sam."
So when I see in the DVD specials Ms. director and her staff doing such detailed research and work, going to russia and practically rebuild a submarine in US, saying all the time how important it was to get everything as real as possible, how can they blow up all their efforts by not telling the real story. Now knowing that the story is not accurate, the movie is worthless to me. |
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