The Hunt for Red October (1990)

Submarine drama adapted from a Tom Clancy novel and starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin. Connery is a Russian naval captain who wants to defect to the USA, but his actions threaten to bring about full-scale war. Baldwin is the CIA intelligence analyst who has to save the world.

The performances are reasonable (James Earl Jones and Joss Ackland also have roles), but there’s something missing. It’s probably unfair to compare this film to Das Boot or K-19: The Widowmaker, but I never once felt I was aboard an actual submarine. It’s oddly lifeless, with a lack of atmosphere and a certain stilted quality. This isn’t helped by Connery, whose “calm” manner is taken to extremes, resulting in merely an expressionless mask.

Motivations stay mysterious: we don’t learn why Connery wants to defect or how his staff feel about it. Nor do we discover why one of the sub’s cooks wants to sabotage the mission.

Another oddity is the use of subtitles in the early stages of the film. Once it has been established that these are Russians speaking, the subtitles cease and their dialogue reverts to English. That creates confusion later when subtitles return and it’s actually unclear which language Baldwin and Connery are meant to be speaking in. It would have been better to use the standard film trope of a non-English language simply being spoken in English – but with accents.

While there’s nothing really wrong with the film, and you could argue that it ticks all the right boxes for a Cold War thriller, ultimately it falls flat. But a more inspired director than John McTiernan could probably have made it work.