Adventure

Drama

Thriller

Black Sea

Focus Features

Cowboy Films

Film4 Productions

United Kingdom

United States of America

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English

Jude Law

Karl Davies

Jodie Whittaker

Daniel Ryan

Scoot McNairy

Tobias Menzies

Michael Smiley

David Threlfall

Ben Mendelsohn

Konstantin Khabenskiy

Grigoriy Dobrygin

Bobby Schofield

Sergey Veksler

Branwell Donaghey

Sergey Kolesnikov

Sergey Puskepalis

Llewella Gideon

Gus Barry

Zaak Conway

Yuri Klimov

Dennis Kelly

Kevin Macdonald

Charles Steel

Rob Huckle

Sophie Phillips

Andrea King

Ian Tapp

Graham Sutton

Nick Palmer

Mark Clayton

Iain Mackay

Natalie Ward

Niv Adiri

Alena Garetovskaya

Rory Herbert

Jo Cameron Brown

Hattie Storey

Glenn Freemantle

Tim Caplan

Nina Gold

Jamie Edgell

Jason Swanscott

Ian Thomson

Dillon Bennett

Keith Mason

Peter Clarke

Justine Wright

Simon Hughes

Ben Mangham

Alex Bailey

Merve Harzadin

Ilan Eshkeri

Alasdair Flind

Jim Cochrane

Jane Robertson

Christopher Ross

Tessa Ross

James Summers

Kira Fitzpatrick

Emma Claire Johnson

Louis Phillips

Gillian Dodders

Paul Wrightson

Rashad Hall-Heinz

Chris Cull

Rowena Oven

Glen Gathard

Warwick Drucker

Adrian Rigby

Louise Seymour

Mark Appleby

Tim Battersby

Marese Langan

Matthew Penry-Davey

Simon Bysshe

Saul Metzstein

Neil Ellis

Tasha Back

Theo Berman

Peter Hanson

Chris Newton

Bill Turpin

Paul Kennington

Dominic Channing-Williams

Charlie Reed

John Lee

Andy Wareham

Alex King

Gary Merrington

John Marzano

Mustafa Tyebkhan

Andrey Schtaff

Sergio Bernuzzi

Bruce Barnes

James Harrison

Carmelo Grasso

Felix Pickles

Giles Keyte

Jed Evans

Tony Christie

Ed Lancaster

Jack Dehaan

Alejandro Mackay

Robin Lawrence

Sergey Maximov

Joe Withers

Damian Roberts

Theo Park

Adam Ings

Kay Bilk

Jonathan Maris

Agnieszka Szeliga

Arina Pakhomova

George Moss

Clear the desk and clear the decks.

There's a fabled Nazi U-Boat down in the depths of the ocean, aboard is gold, lots of gold. So it's time for a not so motley crew of submariners to go forth - in an antiquated submarine - and try to set themselves up for life. Naturally nothing goes as planned, there are hidden agendas, rival factions within, claustrophobia reigns supreme, will anyone survive? Will you want any of them to survive?

Black Sea is not without problems, though the complaints about credibility and believability not being available? Well these are surely from folk who don't watch enough of, or understand the workings of, genre cinema of this ilk. Kevin Macdonald (director) and Dennis Kelly (writer) have crafted a tight and efficient submarine thriller. Characterisations are clichéd, with nods to other genre type of films evident, but the group dynamics pulse with danger and the inevitable peril sequences strike the requisite suspenseful chords.

Black Sea doesn't define or reinvent the submarine thriller wheel, it just keeps the rotor shafts turning. Strong casting and earthy photography help matters, to make this - ropey accents aside - better than a time waster of a viewing. 6.5/10

CinemaSerf

Laid off from his job, "Robinson" (Jude Law) gets wind of a rumoured sunken horde of Nazi gold at the bottom of the Black Sea. He manages to cobble together some funds, recruit the ultimate in disparate crew - half British and half Russian, and somewhat implausibly obtain a WWII submarine that is only really held together by rust. Off they go in search of their loot and, as you might expect, tempers and superstitions run riot as the claustrophobic environment and cultural clashes cause difficulties for the increasingly isolated skipper. At times the imagery is quite effective at conveying some of the peril as their boat lurches from one disaster to another, but for the most part this is a really poorly constructed drama let down at pretty much every turn by Law's over-acting, his intermittent Scots accent, some very ropey dialogue and a cast of people who would usually perform better - Ben Mendelsohn and David Threfall, especially - but who really don't deliver anything substantial in this really cheap and cheerful looking effort. Some of the submarine interiors are authentic enough - a real one was used - but that can't really compensate for the lacklustre and repetitive narrative that can have but one conclusion. Not one of Kevin MacDonald's finer works - despite the decent cast.

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Black Sea

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Cast

Jude Law

Karl Davies

Jodie Whittaker

Daniel Ryan

Scoot McNairy

Tobias Menzies

Michael Smiley

David Threlfall

Ben Mendelsohn

Konstantin Khabenskiy

Box office

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