Sub Down

So my home-on-leave-from-his-submarine son and I sat down to enjoy a nice submarine movie directed by that fine technician, Alan Smithee. Seeing the apartment sized submersable that not only had plenty of room for the three civilians, but a hot tub and sauna.

OK, OK, not the hot tub. My son quickly asked for a piece of paper to list the technical errors he noticed. Soon he asked for another piece of paper, then another. Starting with the incorrect hull numbers on the boat, to the CO's tee shirt (with writing on it), to the showers -- the woman used enough water for ten men to shower for a week, not to mention the green coolant and the reacter starting like an old flathead Ford, my kid stopped counting at 65 errors.

Fo me, I like to kick back and enjoy movies without nitpicking. I can overlook minor mistakes. I know reality when I see it. My favorite part is when Stephen Baldwin finds and repairs the cause of the boat's crash dive to the bottom. A loose battery cable! One touch and everything works! Thank goodness for Diehard!

The filmmakers apparently made no effort to maintain even the lowest acceptable level of technical/scientific/logical consistency. It was never explained convincingly why the crew abandoned the conn (was it the gas leak? if so, why didn't they put their gas masks on?) effectively losing all control over their boat and fate, the procedures presented are way off the mark, the exhausted, asphyxiated crewmen find the energy (and the oxygen!) to cheer at the end, the conning tower diving planes have miraculously broken through the ice without leaving any trace (they are much wider than the trough opened by the sub), etc., etc. A waste of time and money, both for the makers and the viewers. Only thing worth it is Gabrielle Anwar (mainly because she is very agreeable to look at).

This movie is just silly. I can't believe it took 3 people to write this. It seems like it was written by an 8th grader who had to turn in a paper for homework at the last minute. The external underwater shots look pretty cool, but otherwise the sets are super-cheesy, they look like they were made in someone's backyard. Bad script, bad acting, bad sets, bad bad bad. But when the director bails from his own movie what do you expect. After seeing this movie, I wouldn't ride with Stephen Baldwin in a golf cart, let alone a submarine. Side note: for some reason, this movie is shown on the USA network under the name "Submerged", which is actually a totally different (and better) movie.

... They want you as a new recruit

And if that Village People anthem didn`t get you to sign up to join the navy what chance has SUB DOWN ? No chance really

There`s rather a lot of problems with this movie . One is having Stephen Baldwin as an action hero . Personally speaking I think Mike Baldwin from CORONATION STREET has a better than even chance of becoming an action hero , and according to folklore it`s bad luck to have a woman on a boat . Considering she`s played by Gabrielle Anwar that`s bad luck for the entire movie too not to mention the audience

But the thing that annoyed me was the script . Check this out : A trio of environmentalists get a trip on a nuclear submarine . The submarine crashes and the environmentalists have to save the day . Yeah I`m sure the US navy are so overjoyed about being asked that they`re going to allow a bunch of greenies on their ship , ( I`m sure the Pentagon have been overwhelmed by Greenpeace members asking if they can go to Iraq to do research into depleted uranuim ) though to be fair there`s a lot of environmentalists who`d like to be stuck on a sub with a lot of sex starved sailors , none of whom are female .

Oh and the script is terribly slow , it`s about a third of the way through before anything actually happens and until it does we have to put up with lots of techno-babble which will be of absolute no interest to anybody . It shows you how bad a movie is when you start wishing both a bunch of terrorists AND Steven Seagal would turn up to enliven the scenes

SUB DOWN is one of those movies that`s credited as having Alan Smithee as director ( ie the director didn`t want his real name to be listed ) but the director here can be forgiven for the most part since it`s obvious the budget - Like the script - wasn`t up to much , so the relatively unspectacular crash doesn`t deserve a tirade of criticism . The only thing the director can be blamed for ( Apart from casting Baldwin and Anwar - That goes without saying ) is a scene where a torpedo works loose and slides towards a sailor`s head , unfortunately the shot cuts away before you see his head get squashed . Oh well . I do congratulate the director for including a really funky tune in the opening credits because if it wasn`t for that I might have given SUB DOWN one out of ten but I`ll give the movie two out of ten

As part of a new cooperative programme between research bodies and the military, the Portland nuclear submarine sets off on a several week mission with the three-man crew of a smaller submarine on board and the mini-sub attached to the bodywork. When the environmentalists are out in their mini-sub doing work, the main submarine collides with a Russian submarine and, badly damaged, plummets to the seabed where it rests totally disabled and trapped beneath thousands of feet of ice. With their craft still intact and powered up, the research team are the only hope for the Portland's crew.

A submarine movie with Baldwin in it? Sounds great – I haven't seen Red October for ages! What? Oh. It's Stephen Baldwin. And it's a much lower budget affair than Red October. Despite this I thought I'd give this film a good in the hope that it would give some low budget tension and excitement. Modern submarine movies have shown that, even with a reasonable story, it is easy to generate tension in a confined, predominately male environment where danger is all around – Crimson Tide and Red October are both good examples of this. However Sub Down doesn't seem able to be exciting once. Although the film has a low budget it cannot hide behind that excuse for this failing – the fault lies with the script and the direction. The dialogue is poor pretty consistently – whether it be unrealistic and silly banter between characters who are moments from death or the sheer improbability of the plot. These failings could have been covered if the film had been tense and involving but sadly it is not – it is flat and surprisingly dull.

Of course part of this is down to budget, but the director could still have used the movement of the camera, music and urgent performances to convince us that everything was urgent and dangerous. However he doesn't – his direction is very much a matter of setting a camera and filming, there was no style and sense of using the camera as a dramatic aid rather than just a method of recording the story. Even death scenes and scenes of sacrifice are delivered with very little emotion or tension – again proof of just how flat and unengaging the whole thing was. For a low budget film the effects were OK. The internals of the sub were a little too wooden and lacking in metal to convince and it did look like a soundstage, however the external shots work OK. The one thing with the externals in submarine movies is that even average model work can be covered by the lack of light underwater – hence the dark shapes gliding around in this film convinced me – just a shame that the scenes with the two subs are edited too quickly, diminishing the impact and the excitement. It is a shame, because the basic 'sub trapped on sea bed' idea has potential but this film squanders almost all of it. By the time the stupid (yet sadly predictable) conclusion comes, it is unlikely you'll care anymore.

Even some of the effects hide the low budget, the cast do not – how far down a wish list do you reckon a podgy, doggy-haired Baldwin comes? Here is a dumb hippy stereotype and never wins the audience. Partly it is the fault of the script as his dialogue is mostly bad and he has no character, but Baldwin is bad even with me making excuses for him. Anwar overplays her English accent to the detriment of sounding like a real person. Conti is as low rent as they come and is really slumming it here. The support cast includes some typically gruff and heroic performances from bargain-basement actors such as Mulkey and Plana – recognisable faces but they have nothing to do but try and be gruff and heroic – a job the script makes harder for them.

Overall a bad script, a bad plot, average acting and bad direction all combine to suck any potential out of this film, leaving it floundering, lifeless as it totally fails to ever really get going or engage the audience. It takes real effort to take this basic premise and suck all tension and excitement out of it but sadly, this film manages to do it from the very start.