Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Jonathan C K-19 is the story of a Russian nuclear submarine that bites off more than it can chew; hastily rushed into production, the sub goes on a operational mission to test-launch a nuclear missile. Problem is that their reactor malfunctions and turns them into 1.5 megaton H- Bomb waiting to happen. The engineering crew has to resort to desperate/suicidal measures to get the problem under control.This is a fine premise for a thriller plot, and indeed Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson turn in their usual outstanding performances. The problem, however, is that the movie seems somehow a bit overdone. The action is accompanied by a sweeping romantic film score that often seems to impose its will and intrude on the action. Some scenes are done with a flair for melodrama and overacting that takes away from the outstanding human story.Still, it is a decent popcorn muncher.

slightlymad22 Long after Harrison Ford was Han Solo, he was Captain Alexi Vostrikov, and long before Liam Neeson was Brian Mills, Qui Gon Jin or Oskar Shindler, he was Captain Mikhail Potenin in "K-19: Widowmaker"For sown unknown reason I don't like submarine movies, I just find them slow moving and dull (That includes "The Hunt For Red October") "U571" is the only exception. Ford and Neeson are always watchable though, so I decided to give it a go when it was starting on TV tonight. Plot In A Paragraph: It's the height of the 1960's Cold War, and Russia launches the K-19, a flagship nuclear submarine. Aboard this submarine are Captain Alexei Vostrikov (Harrison Ford) and executive officer Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson) who is popular amongst the crew. Tension run high between the two, as they clash on regularly occasions . When the vessel's nuclear reactor system begins to leak, the two men and their crew must become brave countrymen to avoid a disaster.It was what I expected it to be (OK I didn't expect either of them to go with dodgy accents) a slow moving tension filled movie on a sub. Though it was a refreshing change to see a movie where Americans were not the brave heroes. The ending didn't fill me with the anger it should have (which was a shame) and I'll probably never watch it again, as whilst Ford and Neeson are as watchable as always, but these are not two of their finest hours.

oragex This movie is dramatic, hard to watch, because what you see in the movie is what happened in realty. If you browse Wikipedia about the K-19 submarine, you notice that every detail in the movie is described in Wikipedia. It is troubling seeing the sacrifices.I am not a fan of Harrison Ford outside the Jones character, but if you look to the picture of the real Russian commander, he looks like Harrison Ford! The movie is good because it relates what happened, and it does it so well. Very good filming, acting is not the best because there are several known American actors and it's not easy to imagine them as Russian people. Moreover the main cast in their characters look like too many known American movies.What's not pleasant in this movie, it's the constant melodramatic soundtrack. Someone in Hollywood doesn't understand how art works, it doesn't need to look pitiful to have the spectators emotionally involved. On the other hand it's what made the movie popular for the masses. Would be good to have such movies with a soundtrack OFF option on a DVD edition.

p-stepien Back in the heat of cold war, the Soviet Union entered into an ill-advised technological advancement war. Despite initial much publicised success the effort strained the country, when funds and ingenuity were diverted from more pressing needs. Nonetheless the K-19 nuclear submarine was another great achievement of Russian thought, not to undermine the ultimate failure of internal machinery. Too proud for reason the Soviet Union decides to float the boat, despite an onslaught of minor faults still troubling the technical crew. The more familial Captain Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson) tries to delay deployment, but ultimately his superior and first-in-command Captain Alexei Vostrikov (Harrison Ford) holds the decision. Dedicated to the Soviet Union and instructions from above, despite misgivings Vostrikov orders the K-19 to be floated and the crew soon journeys into the international waters. Unfortunately, the unthinkable and inevitable occurs...Unabashedly dedicated to war history Kathryn Bigelow warps the standard and delves into a story without American warships and submarine, instead omitting the ideological backdrop and capturing the human ordeal behind the ill-fated K-19. And this is her main point of valour, as unfortunately the story itself fails to really hit, sometimes forced to advance through standardised Hollywood gimmicks. Nonetheless the attempts to avert a nuclear catastrophe by the crew, who haphazardly try to weld a radioactive leak, is as gut-wrenching as it is mesmerising. Pretty damning liberties with the facts in order to guarantee 'narrative flow' are one point of contention, the other a somewhat 'ghost in the machine' resolution of the tentative relationship between Polenin and Vostrikov (not to mention that the whole worn-down theme of conflict between the ship captain and his second in charge seemed derivative to the more dreaded occurrences on the ship). The trite resolution of the conflict unmistakeably comes with buoyant music and some artless angelic comeuppance. Harrison Ford is of no help with his shifting accent and lack of conviction.Making the movie feel somewhat like the submarine itself: a bloated chaotic mess released into the cinematic waters despite its apparent flaws. Not entirely successful in its endeavour, Bigelow does manage to show some of her directorial creds, but the overall product is watchable in its excess, but hardly memorable in retrospect.