Danger Beneath the Sea

A sorry copy of "Crimson Tide" in my opinion. As each part of the film developed I just new what was going to happen next. Casper Van Dein has not been in anything nearly as good as "Starship Troopers" and it pains me to see him in this. The acting is wooden, the story predicable, give it a miss.

Dave

Of course I had never heard about the 2001 movie titled "Danger Beneath the Sea" prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2024. And with it being a movie that I had never seen, nor actually heard about, then of course I opted to sit down and watch what writer Lucian Truscott IV and director Jon Cassar had to offer.

Turns out that I wasn't in for a cinematic masterpiece. But then again, I wasn't exactly expecting that from this movie. Why? Well, given the fact I had never heard about it and it was a movie with Casper Van Dien in the lead as a submarine captain, well that just wasn't the recipe for an amazing movie, was it?

The storyline in the movie was adequate, I will say that much for the script that writer Lucian Truscott IV managed to churn out. Yeah, it was a watchable enough movie, and entertaining enough for what it turned out to be. But it just wasn't a particularly outstanding submarine movie. I was adequately entertained throughout the course of the 92 minutes that the movie ran for.

The acting performances in the movie were fair, though it was a bit difficult to take Casper Van Dien serious in the role of a nuclear submarine captain. The movie had only one other familiar face on the cast list for me, and that was Gerald McRaney. But I will say that the actors and actresses on the cast list were talented enough and put on fair performances.

Visually then the movie was okay. It wasn't a movie that really relied on special effects to tell its story, for better or worse.

While I did manage to sit through the movie, this is hardly a movie that warrants more than just a single viewing.

My rating of "Danger Beneath the Sea" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Without the mega-budget and superstars, this B movie is pretty good movie to watch." Admiral Justice (Gerald McRaney) has high hopes for golden-boy Commander Miles Sheffield, (Casper Van Dien) and assigns him to the nuclear submarine USS Lansing. But Sheffield's appointment doesn't sit well with veteran officer Albert Kenner (Stewart Bick), who was passed over for the captain's post; a virulent anti-Communist, Kenner shares his grievances with the sub's like-minded swabbies. An unexpected power surge in North Korea causes a secret, ocean-based missile test to go awry, the resulting jolt disrupts the Lansing's communication systems and gives the erroneous impression that the ship has been attacked. Sheffield, who's untested in combat, advises laying low until he can confirm the hostile strike. But the paranoid Kenner does everything he can to undermine Sheffield's authority and, after they surface in a Korean Harbor, a radioactive powder rains on both the officers. Between the fact that the bay side city is dark (there's been a power blackout) and the nuclear shower, Kenner's worst fears seem to have been confirmed. Though Sheffield's wait-and-see policy is entirely appropriate, Kenner stages a mutiny and allows Sheffield to go untreated for radiation sickness. With his inner circle in place, Kenner activates a nuclear strike against North Korea. An international incident seems imminent; there's no way for Admiral Justice to contact the Lansing so Admiral Justice orders the USS Mako to search and destroy the Lansing.

P.S Great acting from all the cast, especially Casper Van Dien, Gerald McRaney and Ron White.

It wasn't bad for about the first half but it got so completely ridiculous I had to bail. The inciting incident is pretty ballsy for a TV film.

But would a sub's Captain and XO really go out on the sail to see it a nuke exploded a couple miles away? And as dumb as that was, would they really develop strong radiation sickness so quickly? And the captain is given a shot of iodine because of radiation acute radiation sickness and five minutes later he is fine. That's Star Trek medicine, not reality, unless that iodine was laced with amphetamines.

Could an American navy sub really have so many scheming nutters on board? That would be rather terrifying.

There are comparisons to Crimson Tide, but to some degree, submarine movies tend to be very similar because of the nature of subs. And there was a famous Soviet sub incident in the Cuban Missile Crisis where the officers differed sharply on whether to use a nuclear torpedo.

The great thing about Crimson Tide was both sides had a fairly plausible argument. Though, granted, at least to my civilian understanding, the captain there could not relieve the XO for refusing to launch regardless of the XO's reasoning. That's the whole point of the two man rule.

But it all seemed somewhat reasonable. In this film, you have scheming nutters and officers easily swayed by nutters. And one of the nutters believes the USSR still exists. Silly silly silly. Also, the stakes here are much less than those in Crimson Tide. If indeed WWIII has broken out, they are just one boat of many others, in addition to all the other nukes in the US arsenal. They are in most practical terms pretty much irrelevant.

As a submariner, I have become accustomed to ignoring the technical inaccuracies in submarine movies. It would be impossible to watch them if I let those mistakes bother me. This move was different. Rather than ignoring the inaccuracies, I tried with dogged determination to find one thing that was accurate. From both the Captain and Executive Officer wearing Command at Sea pins above the right pocket, to the unrecognizable Submarine Qualification pins , to the fact hat every Petty Officer on the pier at the submarine base was an aviation rating, to the wrong people barfing out information they couldn't possibly have, to the "you can find me by the radio console" etc. Etc. Etc. The pep talk from the chief to the new sailors was ridiculous. His prediction that two thirds of them won't qualify for a rating and that half of them won't earn their Dolphins is some kind of "elite fighting force" bs that doesn't apply to subs where nearly everyone qualifies. Not one thing was realistic except for the Los Angeles class boat that was featured in the ship's external scenes. The problem is that it is the wrong class boat. Strategic nuclear weapons aren't carried aboard an attack sub. Nope. Not one thing about this movie was even close to realistic.

I could overlook Gene Hackman calling the Chief of the Boat "Mister Cobb" in Crimson Tide. I could forgive Scott Glenn for leaving his billion dollar nuclear submarine to join a boarding party (something no ship captain other than Kirk or Picard would ever do) in Red October.

But this one doesn't just do a lot of things wrong. It doesn't do a single thing right.