One of my all time favorites.

Good concept, poorly executed.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

At the time that Ronald Reagan and Sergei Gorbachev schedule a meeting in Iceland about reducing nuclear weapons, two submarines are playing tag under the Atlantic Ocean. The American submarine, commanded by Martin Sheen wearing dark hair and an impeccably groomed gray beard, accidentally scrapes the Soviet submarine, commanded by Rutger Hauer, whose movie this is.No damage to the American boat but the incident has sheared off part of the top deck of the Soviet boat. Fuel floods one of the compartments, the missile bay and it's put out only by the exercise of Herculean strength and bravery.But, like the corpse coming back to life in a horror movie, something else flares up. The nuclear power plant goes ape. It has to be shut down manually by men wearing Hazmat suits and putting all their strength into returning the rods to the radioactive materials before they pass out. The rods creak downward, inch by agonizing inch. Success in sinking the rods and shutting down the radiation is finally achieved, with loss of life, but the boat is now so dangerous it must be abandoned and it sinks thousands of feet before coming to rest on the ocean bottom, still carrying sixteen missiles, several corpses, and a radioactive power plant.Hauer handled the emergency as well as any experienced captain could but he's still dismissed from the Soviet Navy. He returns to his wife, Sanja Spengler, who looks so yummy that he shouldn't be suicidal about the way things turned out.It's hard to tell how much of it is true because nobody with any weight seems prepared to talk about it but it has the ring of at least semi-truth. There is a commissar aboard, representing Moscow, and a member of KGB. These political types are usually treated badly in American movies. They're often ugly and they sneer a lot. No wonder Sean Connery broke his commissar's neck in "The Hunt for Red October." In this movie the commissar begins as a superior snotnose. Hauer always greets him with "How's Moscow" and then movies quickly on. But here the commissar, though no sailor, plays a pivotal part in the attempts to save the ship and his last communication with Hauer is a friendly, sympathetic smile.It drags a bit here and there, and some of the technical details escape me. Needles wriggle on strange dials. Incomprehensible orders are issued. But it's not at all a bad movie. The Russians are rational, though they have their hawks. The Americans are rational too, although they have their hawks who want to start the damme war and get on with it.The production values are low and he CGIs primitive but it's a much more balanced story than either "The Hunt For Red October" or "The Widowmaker." If you watch it you'll probably be caught up in this tense story.

There is nothing that is presented in this film that would allow the viewer,that is you or I, the ability whereby this particular offering entitled,"Hostile Waters" was anything more than an entertainment vehicle.The Motion Picture culture has created a false sense of identity or the equal if you will of a false sense of importance which by its very make-up provides nothing more than a spectacular premise to an already outrageous lie.This however deflating such care is, it is such care that would not lie merely to save face but would indeed provide the kind of information whereby time would be better spent than being entertained by a pompous blow hard with nothing more than pulling a fast one and making money as well.There is hardly anything more than a sound stage, and performances being what they are, are as well performances designed to provide, or at least make the effort to convince the audience that what the audience is viewing is believable.This is in principal what there is to look at if in fact there is anything to the premise or in its presentation that is to be believed.Entertaining most certainly but entertaining to be certain.The purpose had in being entertained is not always quite the entertainment vehicle that perhaps entertainment is customarily associated with, and it is this association that is where the difficult problem that this entertainment vehicle is often associated.It is truly a demanding task to ask of the audience to believe that what we see is what we get when we are looking at for our viewing pleasure a motion picture.It is in fact a virtual impossibility that what you see is what you get,unless you see more than is provided you will never see what you get nor will there ever be a need too.The reason is that these films should never be provided with the ability to enter into such areas and even more so there is so many outrageous lies that if attacked in truth there would be those that would believe and defend a lie because of another reason all together.The cumulative effect of such a defense is that the mis-guided idealogy is basing its own idea of importance on a false set of assumptions thereby providing society with a lost character and indeed a rather volatile chemistry is established that is in fact deviant.That is most of this world and much of what this industry has provided has been further enhanced with a underpinning whereby importance,self esteem and self acceptance are all part of the premise to entertainment and the entertainment medium.The ever dangerous encroachment is that Fascism and a related idealogical underpinning are very much on the side of this kind of problem and indeed it is this that provides a measure of justification to its own existence,they both are in fact the same problem.This film entitled "Hostile Waters" is only an example as would be any whose pedigree sought justification for its outrage against humanity.This being what it is,it is not anything new, nor is what this world has been up to for a time entered into anything new as well.This information can be found in the latter days of the 19th century with other informed positions suggesting quite well that there was something to the "Mass Psychology of Fascism".It is what has transpired and there is more to come.This measure of encroachment has sought to supersede nature and it is the cause as to its ability to over-ride normal sensibility,indeed we are in the throes of a new world order and a new world order is going to come around again.This is the real deal and either you get rid of it or it will get rid of you.This vehicle is most certainly entertaining however most certainly entertaining is not all there is to this vehicle.

This is a very good Cold War drama about a cat and mouse game between American and Soviet nuclear submarines in the mid-Atlantic that turns potentially deadly after an accidental collision. Supposedly based on a real incident that took place shortly before the Reykjavik summit between Reagan and Gorbachev in 1986, the movie managed to capture well the level of mistrust between the two opposing subs and the dangers caused by that mistrust. Most of the action takes place on the Soviet sub, badly damaged after the collision with the crew desperately trying to get everything under control, while the Americans try to figure out exactly what the Soviets are up to.This is a relatively low budget, TV movie - and the low budget sometimes shows a bit, but all in all a worthwhile piece of entertainment. 8/10

I spent 24 years at sea and I liked this film because of the accurate portrayal (of the Russians ) in an emergency situation and the way the situations were assessed and dealt with was pretty genuine.Like Sailors everywhere ( well most sailors with some sad exceptions ie Flag of convenience Passenger ships where the crew take to the boats first in recent years)They realise they have to pull together and get things sorted in order to save their Ship ,themselves, and the Eastern US SeaboardWhen I was at sea we had a typical British tongue in cheek saying'If in Danger or in doubt run in circles scream and shout'Which luckily never happens in reality (I hope..)No Nationalistic ranting or Stars/Stripes/Hammer and sickle waving -But do we need that anyway?