Phantom

Suspense thrillers are often calibrated, meticulous, nail-biting ventures that intensifies an otherwise normal situation that, a lot of the time, is routine. We've seen this in films like "Unstoppable", "Pelham One Two Three", "Jaws", "Side Effects", "Broken City", and now we have "Phantom".

Ed Harris plays Demi, the captain of a Cold War Soviet submarine who has recently been suffering from epileptic seizures that alter his perception of reality. Forced to leave his wife, Sophi (Dagmara Dominczyk) and daughter, he is pushed into a classified mission, where he is haunted by his past and challenged by a rogue KGB group led by Bruni (David Duchovny) and also Garin (Derek Magyar) and Ravlov (Jonathon Schaech). Bruni is bent on seizing control of the ship's nuclear missile. With the fate of humanity in his hands, Demi discovers, along with Alex (William Fichtner), his executive officer, and Markov (Lance Henriksen) that he has been chosen for this mission in the belief that he would fail.
"Phantom" is a suspense submarine thriller about extraordinary men facing impossible choices.

Others to round out the cast are Jason Beghe as Semak, Sean Patrick Flanery as Tyrtov, Jason Gray-Stanford as Sasha, Julian Adams as Bavenod, Kip Pardue as Yanis, and Matt Bushell as Sentry.

This story which was a classified incident in 1968 was based on actual events. It was effectively directed by Todd Robinson ("Angel Fire" '92, "Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick" (Documentary) '95, "Amargosa" (Documentary) 2000, "Lonely Hearts" '06, "Amy Cook: The Spaces in Between" (Documentary) '09). It was also written by Robinson which isn't tough to believe since he writes most of the work he directs. With the exception of some jumping around, script wise, this was an intense yarn that kept your attention. The one problem I had with this was the fact that these guys are Russian, but no one speaks Russian. I would understand this considering it's an American made film, but why couldn't they have a Russian dialect instead? With a great dialect coach like Tim Monich, or Susan Hegarty, or Neil Swain, or Elizabeth Himmelstein, or Jessica Drake, it would have given this thriller that added realism that would give it even more intensity. Another example of this flaw was with "Valkyrie" '08 with Tom Cruise. Again, no German language, not even a dialect. I don't get it.

This was a definitely a nail-biter with grit and some nifty twists along the way. It's not great, but solid performances by the cast especially Harris. Even though the Cold War is no more, this should be a constant reminder of where we've come from and also a reminder of making sure we don't go there in the future.

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                      Rated: R                       97mins.