Top: A typically brilliant performance from Harrison Ford in this big budget special effects film with immaculate attention to detail Below: K-19, Russia’s first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine

USSR secret exposed
K-19: The Widowmaker
Starring Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson and Peter Sarsgaard. Rated M



Reviewer :: The Big Irish Git

K-19 was dubbed the widowmaker long before it put to sea. Dogged by problems of supply, poor workmanship, tight budgets, an unyielding and ill-advised adherence to schedules and other joys of communism, K-19 was Russia’s first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. A big boat.

It was 1961. Russia had just won the race to get the first man into orbit. America was in the lead in the race for the moon. And tensions were high between the two nuclear rivals.

But as America held a considerable edge in the nuclear-arms race, Russia was desperate to play a little catch up – regardless of the risks.

The concept of assured mutual destruction ruled international relations.

Fearing for the safety of his tight-knit crew, Captain Mikhail Polenin (Neeson) protests at the dangerous haste in the construction of his boat.

But despite his protests and the almost daily system failures and setbacks, and desperate to deliver a clear message of their own military muscle to the Americans, Russia pushes on with construction and deployment.

Following his repeated and obstructionist protests, Polenin, saved only by his knowledge of boat and crew, is relegated to XO and replaced in command by hard-line party-loyal Captain Alexei Vostrikov (Ford).

Having killed six men before she even left dry dock, K-19 and her new captain set sail on an adventure that will take them to the brink of nuclear oblivion and beyond.

K-19: The Widowmaker is a movie based on real events in a shocking story that remained a closely guarded secret until the fall of the communist empire.

It tells the story of the bond between men at war and the bravery of the few prepared to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of their comrades, their ship and their motherland.

While on its first mission – to launch a test missile just to show the Americans they had the capability – the sub sprang a leak in a nuclear reactor cooling element.

With the core threatening to run out of control, possibly setting off the warheads on board and with a good chance of sparking global nuclear war, seven members of the crew sacrificed themselves to effect repairs inside the reactor.

Working for just 10 minutes at a time in the hot zone, all seven died, as they knew they surely would, within two days.

A further 14 crew members died within a month. But their uncommon valour in the face of certain death was never officially recognised – recorded as unfortunate victims of a peacetime accident.

While everything about K-19: The Widowmaker seems to be right – high-calibre cast with typically brilliant performances from Ford and Neeson, big budget special effects and immaculate attention to detail – it still just misses the mark.

It’s one of those movies where the obvious potential and all the right ingredients are right there in front of you, but never quite gel in the overall delivery.

And at just on two hours viewing time, it bordered on tedious.

The Big Irish Git rates this movie 3 shamrocks

You can view more than 100 other movie reviews by The Big Irish Git on his personal web site www.bigirishgit.com