The first parts of K-19: The Widowmaker hint at various potential problems and bad omens for the Russian K-19 Submarine. The ominous foreshadowing proves to be true, not only in it’s prophecy of problems aboard the K-19 vessel, but also the K-19 movie.

K-19: The Widowmaker is much like the recent U-571 in that they both take place almost entirely on a submarine, their plots both revolve around problems that are caused by being deep under water, they are both very claustrophobic, and they both feature the names of their ships as the titles of the film so as to entice us with their letters and numbers. K-19, of course, adds The Widowmaker to make us think lots of people are going to get blown up, but the only people the K-19 kills are its own shipmen.

Based on a true story, the K-19 is a Russian submarine that carries nuclear weapons and hangs out in the sea to protect the motherland from the Americans in the Cold War era. Its new captain is Alexei Vostrikov (Harrison Ford), who is taking the place of former captain, Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson), who is now the equivalent of first mate but has the respect of the crew.

As the ship sets out on its mission, the mandatory life threatening problems arise on the ship. Here it is especially complicated because not only are the lives of the entire crew in danger, but there is an American ship nearby. The K-19 carries nuclear material and if it blew up, the explosion would be bigger than Hiroshima. Vostrikov’s fear is that a nuclear destruction of an American ship would turn the Cold War into a hot nuclear war.

To further the problems, there are internal tensions between the crew, who support Polenin and dislike Vostrikov, who is making unconventional decisions. The crux of the story, however lies in the sacrifice that certain men have to make in order to keep the ship from blowing up. K-19 tries hard to turn the whole thing into a sort of Saving Private Ryan, complete with a graveside memorial many years after the event to end the film, but it just doesn’t hold up as well. However, despite the contrived portrayal of sacrificial roles, the sacrificial theme marks one of the film’s more redeeming aspects. The rest of the movie is filled with tension that simply isn’t very tense.

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