CRIMSON TIDE comes in with a simple and sobering title card: “Three most powerful men in the world: The President of the United States… The President of the Russian Republic… And… The captain of a U.S. nuclear missile submarine.”   What, me worry?

The early 1990’s. Civil conflict in Russia (post-Soviet) sees separatist elements seize control of a nuke base in the Far East, and commandeer some hunter-killer submarines, craft designed to attack other subs. With the rebel leader issuing war warnings, part of the USA!!! response includes sending out the USS Alabama, ready to do a pre-emptive nuclear strike if the rogue Russkies fuel up their seized missiles. Captaining Alabama is strife vet and sarcastic hardass ‘Frank Ramsay’ (Gene Hackman), an old-school bulldog with a short-fuse temper. Emergency assigned as his Lieutenant Commander is ‘Ron Hunter’ (Denzel Washington), calm, measured, educationally top-qualified but without field command experience. Attitudinal differences appear early on, turn frosty, then go full blown tiger v. lion when the two argue over interpretation of messages on commencing an attack, the crucial, final “go” in question due to damage from an encounter with one of the hunter-killer vessels. World on the brink, the Hunter-Ramsay fight escalates into mutiny. Launch or don’t? Atomic Armageddon poised on the answer, control of the push button will depend on who other key members of the crew side with.

Directed by Tony Scott, the fast-moving $53,000,000 Simpson-Bruckheimer actioner came out in 1995, during the first Clinton administration; it was cheeky enough to even use Bill in a clip. Reviews were mostly positive and it detonated big at home, taking $91,400,000, #11 for the year, with $66,000,000 more volunteered abroad. Oscar nominations were docked for Film Editing, Sound and Sound Editing. Mission accomplished…well, partly.

Recommend for meritorious service—first and foremost, power surges in the electricity arcs between titans Washington, 40, and Hackman, 64, neither yielding an inch or dominating the other. Effective supporting jolts come from George Dzundza, Viggo Mortensen and James Gandolfini. As usual, Scott’s direction is headlong, with Chris Lebenzon’s editing momentum locked into tension gear.  Dariusz Wolski’s camerawork is excellent. Denzel was impressed enough by Scott that a quick decade down the line they teamed four more times: Man On Fire, Déjà Vu, The Taking Of Pelham 123 and Unstoppable. The best line in the script, credited to Michael Schiffer (Colors, Lean On Me, The Peacemaker) is the terse, military-minded “We’re here to preserve democracy, not to practice it.”

Couch Court Martial findings—conduct inaccuracies abound,  and logic walks the plank starting with the absurd muster speech-in-a downpour, proceeding to abandon ship thru the overt hostility from Hackman’s commander, baiting and ferocity better suited to a redneck Alabama sheriff than a respected, presumably rational and educated point-man on igniting a nuclear war. The wholly absurd drill-during-an-active-fire nonsense would get you booted out of Annapolis before you could even have a chance to experience any of the character building hazing rituals. Much is blathered over the uncredited ‘polishing’ of the script from whipper-snapping Quentin Tarantino, and most of the wiseass cracks have his indelicate stomp stamp. Whether his video store history coursing can be blamed for the rah-rah attitude or if the war-as-football jive rests with Scott’s sign-up-and-showoff Top Gun legacy is harder to pinpoint. For sure, honor-overkill galore issues from Hans Zimmer’s score; it draws a lot of admiration; we think it’s one of his weakest; pretentious and corny, a far cry from his generally fine, often truly glorious soundtracks.*

Jason Robards suited up for a prestige cameo at the finish. With Matt Craven, Lillo Brancato Jr., Rocky Carroll, Danny Nucci, Steve Zahn, Rick Schroder, Ryan Phillippe (20, feature debut) and Daniel von Bargen. 116/123 minutes. **

*—just STFU, punk— one example of the “cute” dialogue has crew members fan-blab about famous submarine movies of the past, The Enemy Below and Run Silent, Run Deep, and managing to confuse Clark Gable in the latter for Cary Grant (in older oldie Destination Tokyo—read the manual, sailor). Tellingly, hyperactive Ensign QT steers away from name dropping the more recent (and familiar to modern audiences, let alone the young crew)  Das Boot and The Hunt For Red October: mention those superior pictures and you don’t tickle the audience but set them up for disappointment because they both kick Crimson Tide‘s self-inflated buttinski. For that matter, to a lot of old salts so does Run Silent, Run Deep. One battle stationing where smartass screenwriting should have “rigged for silent running”, instead of “taking the conn job“.

** “Now hear this”—in his scene as an admiral, Jason Robards was 70. During his early 20’s, he was a radioman on cruisers in the South Pacific. Narrowly missing the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, he survived the sinking of USS North Hampton, treading water all night long after it was torpedoed off Guadalcanal on Nov. 30, 1942. On Dec. 13, 1944, near Negros Island in the Philippines he was on USS Nashville when it was slammed by a kamikaze, killing 133 sailors, wounding 190. With apologies to the armada of fanboy blog gushes over how ‘intense’ this is and raving on Tarantino’s ‘hot’ dialogue, excuse me to Midway and back if I find it just a shade easier to salute Robards and his mates than backflip like a male cheerleader over the abject nonsense that depth-charges this well-acted (it is), slickly directed (it is) but doggedly illogical (yes, it is) movie. At ease. Take that Rita Hayworth pinup off the periscope.