Le Chant du loup

If you're into military thrillers, movies like Failsafe, you might like this. It has plenty of twists, good pacing, and a unlikely hero, a flawed sonar man who loves his country and is very good at his job.

The movie is not free of tactical and strategic logic holes, but the pacing, progression of events, f/x, live shots at sea, military action dialogue, and story keep you locked in. For English only viewers, the English dub is excellent.

Reading the reviews here, it seems to be a love it or hate it movie - I don't understand why. I grew up watching the original Das Boot as TV series and went through all the submarine movies. Instead of comparing the incomparable and saying what is flawed etc., I simply want to point out what I liked watching this movie twice:

• refreshing actor set, no B-movie characters just like "could be your neighbour" type
• storyline that could happen, although we normal people would never hear about it
• great music/ambience perfectly fitting the setting
• straightforward effects, less is more
• happy end without happy end, evoked emotions
• overall a very refreshing, non-cliche Hollywood-type movie.

There's a lot of reviews here making points such as "could not happen".

Ok sure, there's some unrealistic stuff going on.

But there's also a lot of original and thoughtful scenes that are explored. There's a lot of ideas here that feel completely fresh.

The idea that a French submarine, once committed to a nuclear strike, will not receive any orders to abort, is a weak one. Unfortunately a large part of the movie hinges around this concept. The second half of the movie does feel a little silly at times because of this.

I liked the sonar guy as the hero.

I did watch the dubbed version, and it was very well done. This movie has exceedingly high production values, with very modern and realistic materials. The acting is excellent, and the pacing is good overall. There is an overriding ambience of tragedy to the story which reiterates the opening epilogue of the movie: "There are three kinds of people; those who are alive, those who are dead, and those who go to sea." (Aristotle.) This is more a thinking person's action movie. Good viewing.

This movie depicts a topical and realistic situation, with the codes of most major big-budget movie. The cast is well chosen and overall does a good job of portraying what many would expect the French navy to be like. But in my opinion, the most successful trait of the movie is its storyline, stemming from contemporary stakes, which I've rarely seen in military/tactical movies, which instead tend to focus on past historical events or on more far-fetched futuristic scenarios. I think that's the reason the story is so compelling, and why I personally found the movie so immersive.