Ever since Hollywood has been making films, there has been those films about war and the fear of it. With films like "Olympus Has Fallen" '13, "London Has Fallen" '16, "Fail Safe" '64 and the like, there is a certain fascination of an apocalyptic 'end of the world' situation. This is especially evident since 9/11. So now we have "Hunter Killer" to add to that list to get our fear juices going.
Deep under the Arctic Ocean, American submarine Captain Joe Glass (Gerard Butler) is on the hunt for a U.S sub in distress when he discovers a secret Russian coup is in the offing, threatening to dismantle the world order. Captain Glass must now assemble an elite group of Navy SEALs, including Bill Beaman (Toby Stephens), Matt Johnstone (Ryan McPartlin), Devin Hall (Michael Trucco) and Paul Martinelli (Zane Holtz) to rescue the kidnapped Russian president Zakarin (Alexander Diachenko) from a rouge Russian admiral Dimitri Durov (Michael Gor), and sneak through enemy waters to stop WWIII. With the tension from American officers CJCS Charles Donnegan (Gary Oldman) and RA John Fisk (Common) to help in solving the dire need of Glass' sub, Glass has to depend on a Russian Captain Andropov (Michael Nyqvist) to guide them through those enemy waters considering they are filled with mines.
Others to round out the cast are Linda Cardellini as Jayne Norquist, Sarah Middleton as Liddy, Caroline Goodall as U.S. President Dover, Corey Johnson as Captain, Carter MacIntyre as XO Brian Edwards, Shane Taylor as TMC Turner and Mikey Collins as Brickowski.
This was intensely directed by Donovan Marsh ("Dollar$ + White Pipes" '05, "The Good Fight" (TV movie) '06, "Spud" '10, "Spud 2: The Madness Continues" (attached) '13, "Avenged" '13) plus TV. With just about every frame, this filmmaker was able to keep its audience on the edge of their proverbial seats by the intensity of what these characters were going through. It was like watching life in fast motion. This individual will continue to be wooed by producers to sit in that director's chair again. It was written by fairly new writers, Arne Schmidt ("Chain Reaction" (story) '96 + tons of assistant direction work) and Jamie Moss ("Street Kings" '08, "Ghost in the Shell" '17) based on the novel "Firing Point" by George Wallace and Don Keith. Considering these writers are fairly new to writing, especially Schmidt, this was as solid as a number of seasoned writers. The biggest flaw I could give this is the amount of choppiness this had to contend with. Mind you, it wasn't riddled with choppiness, however it was enough to keep the audience a bit perplexed going scene to scene. To give these writers credits, even with the choppiness, I was constantly on the edge of my seat and reacting in a way that any writer would want to receive from their audiences. Anything Academy Award worthy? No, but I feel this wasn't made to achieve that goal as much as to give its audience that one, two punch while their munching on their popcorn. Gerard Butler does these types of films often and he's a shoe-in mostly because his characters in these films are calm but dealing with the situation at hand because he knows he has to.
Personally I like these type of films. The adrenaline is like a rush that spins you in your seat and has you rooting for the good guys and booing the bad guys. And isn't this why we go see films? It's the ultimate in telling a story through intensity and high adrenaline. Enjoy this exciting yarn!
Out of 4 Stars: 3.5 Rated: R 121mins.
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