Hunter Killer

An old-school submarine encounter between the Soviets and the Yanks, but filmed in a modern style with agility and enthusiasm.  Butler is an unbelievably likable guy here and Nyqvist was also impressive in one of his last roles. It's a bit of a shame that there is not a more well-developed villain. That wide-eyed jerk in the peaked cap deserves to be ripped apart by Toby Stephens for being so boring. Even so, Hunter Killer is a well-made thriller in the style of Clancy and is more than just a good bit of light entertainment. P.S. This movie was banned in Russia. (11/07/2019)

Why Gary Oldman accepted the role of Dick Cheney in this C-movie is as much of a mystery as what Andrej junior did in Crimea. Sometimes he gives the impression that he was walking around and put on his uniform, then he just commented on something, shook a hand and fucked off. Gerard Butler has already made a living out of this boyish parody, so his macho, homoerotic etudes are actually doing me good. What they lack is a real scoundrel played by Michael Nyqvist, to whom Putin should give citizenship. He's the Russian. What now? TV Barrandov buys these types of films, but the effects are worse. The Russians speak broken Russian for a while, then broken English for a while. Toby Stephens wandered somewhere in Benghazi and found himself on the set in Poljarny. The screenplay was written by Tom Clancy's demented brother, and Donovan Marsh has a unique feel for ugly green screens, and Gareth Edward openly robs Godzilla in one scene. In any case, it is a film where submarines dive, emerge, pass rocks on a razor’s edge and endure a depth charge. I can't give the film less than three stars, because if I omit the lethargic middle, it's actually fun bullshit that gradually develops a 90's mentality. (21/11/2018)

Well there you go, they did quietly make a Call of Duty movie after all. All they had to do was change the name, use Beaman instead of Captain Price, Martinelli instead of Soap, and that was it. Otherwise, it's got all the ingredients I'd expect from a film adaptation of that militant franchise. There are the changes of viewpoint, where one day we're in a nuclear submarine in the midst of a minefield, another time a sniper shielding his buddies, and yet another time a member of a special forces unit out to rescue the President. We run into iconic sequences from the video game series, such as wildly sliding down a concrete slope on your ass, an opening shooting warm-up with fake targets and a time limit, or a camera zooming out of the ground into the stratosphere where a military drone is on the prowl. So, too, does it retain the detached psychology of the characters, where you know almost nothing beyond the conflict (and the film self-consciously hints at this sympathetically a couple of times), and the distrust of the meritorious high command that the guys in the field have to defy at the right moment in order to do the right thing. Like the entire Call of Duty franchise, Hunter Killer is mainly an army-fetishistic, macho, and idiotic story that is irresistibly entertaining from start to finish. (20/02/2019)

This at least could have used a better director and special effects that didn't look like a video game, since the script is so ridiculous and the actors are boring (definitely don't watch Hunter Killer because of Gary Oldman, you'll be disappointed). This game didn't work out for Tom Clancy. (14/07/2019)

I wasn't impressed by the trailer and I admire submarines, but I don't really like movies on this topic, so in the end I'm very pleasantly surprised by how brisk and entertaining Hunter Killer is. Gerard Butler is solid as the captain and I enjoyed the underwater attacks, which are very suspenseful though rather mediocrely filmed. The rescue of the Russian President was also good. I enjoyed myself immensely and didn't expect more here. I can't remember a more entertaining submarine movie, I'll gladly round up. 70% (04/01/2019)