Crimson Tide (Tony Scott, 1995)
“I don’t trust air I can’t see”
“I would hope they'd want us all to know why, sir.”
A fine example of a movie where archetypes are (re)constructed within the first 15 minutes using punchy one-liners and the rest of the run time is spent putting them through fire not to challenge them but to demonstrate their stubborn strength. Nothing here feels didactic, not even when Washington humbly warns, ‘in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself’.
Needless to say, Hackman and Washington are electrifying. They dance with their voices as they progress from a socratic discourse to a full-blown nuclear standoff. Scott and Wolski block the hell out of this one to great effect. The tight framing almost seems to collapse under submarine pressure. The screenplay, dialogue and editing are synced as if by god’s design. The rules of this world are simple and the beats of this movie formulaic. But even if we know where this ship is headed it’s hard not to break out in a sweat.
The kind of film that makes me believe in heroes. The kind of film that gives me the conviction to cosplay as one especially when I’m among pig-headed bigots.