Screened Out – Black Sea

[three-star-rating]Jude Law Scoot McNairy, Bobby Schofield[/three-star-rating]

Every movie doesn’t have to change the world. Film’s most basic requirement is that it entertains us for a few hours. Black Sea accomplishes that, at least.

There’s definitely tension here – you can’t escape it when 12 Englishmen and Russians are looking to pirate Nazi gold. Pressed together in the close quarters of a submarine with unstable personalities and a lust for wealth, bad things are bound to happen.

Law is a submarine wreck salvager terminated from his job. Bitter and poor – alienated by his family – he’s willing to grasp at any scheme. A friend tells Law of a multi-million-dollar shipment of gold on the bottom of the Black Sea, one that never made it from the Russians to Hitler. Law decides to hire a motley crew and steal the bounty. He knows he is employing psychopaths; he knows there’ll be a language barrier between his crew and the necessary Russians. (The sub is Russian.) He is still bent on getting that gold.

He’s like Ahab looking for his white whale. He even brings along a young, sympathetic character (Schofield). I was a little surprised the boy wasn’t named Ismael. I wasn’t surprised that greed and madness would drive everything to carnage.

Maybe I’ve seen too many movies. I guessed the plot twists very early on.

Kevin MacDonald – who helmed the excellent film The Last King of Scotland – directs Black Sea. It’s serviceable work. He doesn’t really add to the claustrophobia of the sub, and he fails to find the terror in the dark waters. He is, however, very capable with character; there are twelve crewmembers, and it’s very easy to keep up with all the personalities.

Unfortunately, since Scotland, MacDonald hasn’t been able to completely create shock. His State of Play was a solid if middling politic thriller where, again, one could see the plot twists coming. How I Live Now had an interesting post-apocalyptic premise, but it was weighed down by young adult angst. MacDonald does show in all of his films that he has a gift with actors. He just needs more uncommonly psychological and complex scripts.

[rating-key]

David Kelly is the scriptwriter here. He is mostly known for British television series. He also won several awards for his book of the musical Matilda. All of his works – especially his theatrical scripts – show a strong homage to other stories. Here, not only does Moby Dick pop to mind, but also do The Usual Suspects and Das Boot. In Black Sea, some of Kelly’s plot points seem downright contrived.

There is a market for Black Sea – those audiences looking for a thriller set in a decaying old sub half a mile underwater. Basically, however, this is a story cobbled together from other old narratives, as rusty as the sea craft that traps the men. Black Seas is a solid distraction, well filmed and expertly acted, but a little unsurprising.