Black Sea

This will probably sound cringy, but I’m really sorry that I can’t give this more than three stars. Kevin MacDonald is an amazing director and I often see that his movies are underrated over here, much to my confusion. But even despite that, I was really looking forward to Black Sea. As far as the technical aspect goes, it was absolutely flawless. But the flaws are in the story. Well, not in the story itself, but rather in its flow. Jude Law’s character is obviously no beginner on the open sea, but the crew he assembles for this shouldn’t be let rowing on a lake. And don’t even get me started on the submarine, it was ridiculous. Everything else is salvaged by the ending that’s pretty solid, but the last three seconds put a stop to it. It’s really hard to rate this kind of movie. However, I must say that throughout the two hours, I wasn’t bored for a single moment, because the deranged crew kept me on my toes. (01.02.2016)

Not bad manly genre movie, which is spoiled mainly by the length and incompleteness of the "cheap" concept. It's exactly the type of movie in which Michael Caine used to star and this movie really does seem to be old-fashioned in a nice way. So you will be even more disappointed how b-rate it is. Especially in terms of playing games with tension among the diverse dregs in an enclosed space during a borderline situation, it clearly calls for more work. In any case, at the end of the day it is a decent example of craftsmanship in which you exactly know from the very beginning what you can expect, what will happen and even who, when and how will die. Simply put, it is a pure routine. But even this kind of movie is nice to watch from time to time. And the time is now. (26.06.2015)

A classic submarine thriller or Jude Law Collects his Pay Packet. An excellently cast crew of unemployed sailors from the UK and Russia quarrels, fights and kills inside a rusty tin. That horrible Ben Mendelsohn stands out. A purely guy’s movie that follows the regular model could easily date to the late eighties and early nineties and you wouldn’t be able to tell. Lines we’ve heard before, tension and Nazi gold bullion that nobody else in the world knows about. A stylish, although not too surprising ending. Great. MacDonald the Scot has a feeling for image and drama and squeezes the maximum out of this fairly ordinary screenplay, but that probably wasn’t enough for the studio. A great shame that it didn’t make it into the theaters. The screeching of metal sounds great from big speakers. Boats are like old whores. They can’t put on makeup properly anymore. (05.03.2015)

Unfortunately, the promising premise is sunk (Ha!) by the script, which only bothered with the big-hearted character of Jude Law. The other members of the crew and how dumb they behave... that's unprecedented sloppiness. And it's a shame, because the film has good moments and the final cigarette on the pile of gold is actually memorable. (21.10.2018)

As a drama, it's good. There are excellent intense moments that are brilliantly acted. However, that's all that left an impression on me. The story is mediocre, it basically seems like it was just about guys ending up in a place where it's about to hit the fan in a few days. This was indeed achieved, but it lacks emotions, something more. This is simply just another movie in the abyss. (17.04.2015)