HUNTER KILLER

                              Hunter Killer: A Captivating War Drama

 
American submarine Captain Joe Glass is on the hunt for a U.S. sub in distress in the Arctic Ocean. He soon learns that a secret Russian coup is in the offing, a conspiracy that threatens to dismantle the world order. With crew and country on the line, Glass must assemble an elite group of Navy SEALs to sneak through enemy waters, rescue the kidnapped Russian president and prevent World War III.

 
Hunter Killer is a different type of American-Russian war drama. This is a movie that is capable of keeping you interested from the get-go till the very end. That is not to say that the movie does not have its faults, albeit, faults that viewers may choose to ignore.
   Having said that, let's start with the story, the plot and the conflict element.
The story is uniquely crafted, and thus allowed for a flexibly creative plot. What was however surprising was the lack of depth in the conflict. The story presented the movie with the right ingredients for a more developed complex conflict element, a conflict tinted with solid motivation. This would have been what the movie maker ought to have put into consideration when considering how to go about building the conflict. But this was absent, thus it was quite incredulous that A Defense minister will up and seek out war against the United States for no just cause. Preposterous stuff. This singlehandedly made the conflict quite weak and undeveloped. It didn't however deprive the movie of its thrills and frills.
   The acting in the movie itself was nondescript, if not even closer to poor. Common( Rear Admiral John Fisk) looked so out of place in the movie that it was hilarious. Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman on their own parts were not as convincing in their roles as you would expect them to be. Their performance at best was average. Not good ,and not poor. Just there. The rest of the cast were near mediocrity. It was even appalling that some of the Russians could speak English without much accent. In fact, some spoke as though they were British. Amazing.

  Where the movie may have failed to deliver a solid conflict and convincing acting, it however didn't fail in delivering a rivetting plot, and the plot twists kept viewers intrigued. One thing the movie did get absolutely spot on was the 'realness' with which events unfolded, barring the fact that 4 US marines trudged into a Russian naval Base without coming across any checkpoints or encountering military patrols. Apart from that, every other thing was spot on. There was no 'ace' piloting of the submarine, there was no machismo leadership of troops and we loved that when there was situation of utter helplessness, help was sought and help was given. We didn't want to see the 'oft-repeated' American brilliant submarining. It's tiring.
  What also had this movie going was the non-demonisation of the Russian nation. It was a story that could have been told from one point of view, but gladly it was not. The heroism of the Russian people was factored in with big results and we applaud that aspect.
For those who love action, this movie is packed with a lot of it, and won't leave you disappointed. The underwater simulations were near perfect, and almost too real. The sniper scene totally nailed it, the attention to naval warfare and weaponry was disturbing but really worth the watch. The insight into effect of Torpedoes and missiles was amazing, you will spot the difference in the two.

We at FCA totally recommend this movie for its unique story and it's all out action. This is a movie that you may even see again in your spare time. It is a high on suspense and even higher on brain busting action scenes, both on ground and below the water depths.
Starring: Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman, Common, Linda Cardellini, Toby Stephens

Directed by: Donovan Marsh

Produced by: Neal H. Moritz, Toby Jaffe, Gerard Butler, Tucker Tooley, Alan Siegel, Mark Gill, Matthew O'Toole, John Thompson, Les Weldon

Written by: Arne Schmidt, Jamie Moss

Based on: Firing Point by Don Keith & George Wallace

FCA's AppR: 7/10

Funny note: how did the U.S. Government have live video feed of a coup and still mulled over how best to proceed? Even thinking how to prove there was an actual coup....