Crimson Tide Details

What does Hollywood do when there are no longer vicious Reds under the bed and no more Soviet villains to provide convenient political scapegoats? This gung-ho blockbuster from the Top Gun team (director Tony Scott and producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer) simply dusts off the time-honoured Russian menace with a script that turns post-Cold War cartwheels to explain an impending Armageddon. An American nuclear submarine, the USS Alabama, is ordered to make a pre-emptive strike on Russian “ultra-nationalist” rebels who have taken over a missile base, then receives a second, incomplete radio message suggesting it holds off the attack. The submarine's captain, Gene Hackman, is determined to remedy the explosive situation using his nuclear capability, whatever the consequences. However, his mutinous executive officer (Denzel Washington) stands between him and the horribly alluring Doomsday button. Hackman gives one of his most convincing bully-boy performances as an underwater Captain Bligh, plumb crazy with power but hitting a brick wall in the form of a resolute second-in-command. Propelled at full throttle by fast pacing, impressive hi-tech and a palpable friction between the two leads, the underwater action is further fuelled by a slick score from Hans Zimmer. This is riveting stuff, an achievement that is more remarkable in view of the movie's restricted setting — a submarine's claustrophobic confines. It's not profound, but it is good.

Ranked #8 in Entertainment Weekly's "10 Best Movies of 1995" -- "...Riveting....The two actors keep working to top each other's fury..."