Kursk (2018)

	Directed by: Thomas Vinterberg	COUNTRY Belgium/France/ Luxembourg Genre Disaster/Drama NORWEGIAN TITLE Kursk RUNNING TIME 117 minutes
	Produced by: Ariel Zeitoun Patrick Vandenbosch Christophe Toulemonde Fabrice Delville Jérôme de Béthune
	Written by: Robert Rodat

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Captain-Lieutenant Mikhail Averin	Matthias Schoenaerts	½
Tanya Averina	Léa Seydoux
Misha Averin	Artemiy Spiridonov	½
Commodore David Russell	Colin Firth
Admiral Andrey Grudzinsky	Peter Simonischek
Anton Markov	August Diehl	-
Admiral Petrenko	Max von Sydow
Captain Nikitin	Bjarne Henriksen	-
Captain Gennady Shirokov	Martin Brambach	-
Oleg Lebedev	Magnus Millang	-
Pavel Sonin	Matthias Schweighöfer	-
Executive Officer Alexander Grekov	Peter Plaugborg	-
Lieutenant Bruce Hamil	John Hollingworth	-
Graham Mann	Steven Waddington	-
Leo	Joel Basman	-
Aksana	Pernilla August	-
Counter-Admiral Mikhail Denisov	Gustaf Hammarsten	-

Review

The story of the accident aboard the Russian submarine Kursk and the ensuing failed rescue attempts by the Russians is handled with apparent disaster-genre inclinations by Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg (Jagten). The traditional structure of building up character relations and setting the stage for the inevitable catastrophe does stir up a fair amount of emotion and engrossment, but the film is a little too hinged on a predictable good/bad-guys dichotomy and a somewhat archaic view of the east/west axis. Fine performances from Matthias Schoenaerts, Léa Seydoux and Peter Simonischek elevate the drama, whereas Max von Sydow is clearly too old in what turned out to be his final film role. The screenplay was written by Robert Rodat, penner of Saving Private Ryan.