The Crimson Ocean

Even the biggest optimists understandably cannot expect a grand spectacle like Titanic from a European television movie, but I was somewhat disappointed in the end. The problem with this film is not that it is cheap, but that it looks cheap. The Gustloff sank for approximately 50 minutes and if the creators were able to present those 50 minutes in a reasonably appropriate way, my impression would definitely be better. However, because their budget did not allow them to, or rather, they were unable to film the attack on the ship and its destruction as their finances allowed, the overall length of the film is dragged out because, with such a subject, the viewer simply expects the drama of a sinking ship. Instead, the film plays out several individual stories of passengers on the ship, but the individual characters are not as attractive and the actors are not charismatic enough to truly captivate the audience. Additionally, the screenwriter did not want to admit that the reason for the ship's destruction was the fact that by the end of January 1945, the Germans no longer controlled the Baltic Sea, so an unlikely story of a Soviet spy or rather, a German traitor infiltrating the crew was created. The reality was that the captain of the Soviet submarine had his own personal issues due to his repeated drunkenness and desperately needed success, so he took a risk and sank the first ship that crossed his path... Overall, The Crimson Ocean is an average war film that undoubtedly had greater ambitions and could have been filmed better. Overall impression: 50%. (17/06/2009)