Cockamamie. Now there’s a word I haven’t used in a while. I had to look up the spelling because I cannot remember ever seeing it in print. But “cockamamie” is the first and only word that comes to mind when I think of whatever political thriller Hunter Killer was trying to be. It strikes me as the kind of film you make if you decided to make a Tom Clancy movie based not directly from a Clancy novel, but on the second hand description of it from a nine-year-old.
Let me sum up: The President of Russia has been kidnapped by a military insurgent group made up of his underlings and a US submarine has to rescue him on Russian soil without starting WWIII. Got it? Good. Now you can explain it back to me so that it makes sense.
As underwater adventures I’ve seen this year go, Yellow Submarine was more believable than Hunter Killer.
Straight out of a James Bond plot, the film opens with a hidden Russian sub destroying another Russian sub and the US sub pursuing it. United States forces leap into action! Joint Chiefs chairman Gary Oldman gets top secret intel from Admiral Common and NSA Analyst Linda Cardellini. This is presented in the form of: “Sir, there’s a matter of national security we must discuss in private; let’s get out of this small conference room and go into the middle of that open atria with the great acoustics.”
Yeah, Hunter Killer is that kind of movie.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the Arctic, Captain Gerard Butler finds nothing salvageable from the downed US sub, but instead rescues Captain Michael Nyqvist from the Russian sub, which will prove a valuable move for getting his submarine in and out of Russian waters. This is all very exciting, of course: torpedo launches, icebergs, sea mines, insurrection … oh and a Navy Seal team infiltrating Russian territory. For all the exhilaration Hunter Killer had to offer, however, it just wasn’t terribly believable on micro or macro level — the plot is an Absolut joke, and every conversation between two people in uniform felt like improv class. C’mon, Common, you’re an Admiral. Sell it. Sell it! For all the costume mattered, Gary Oldman could still be in his Churchill getup.
Among the most aggravating facets of the movie is the reliance on, of all things, truth: the premise here is some Russians are good; some Russians are bad. This is 100% true, yet incredibly misleading. The audience for this film is either people who bought into traditional Cold War fear in which Russians were evil or modern political fear, in which Russians are evil. While neither of those statements is true, I can guarantee that nobody powerful in Russian government right now is doing anything right by the United States. Hence, targeting Americans aware enough of politics to come to this film and then tell them, “Oh, by the way, some Russians are good guys and some Russians are bad guys,” is not only confusing, it’s downright dangerous for the easily addled Trumpian parade of idiots. Oh, what does it matter? The deplorables are gonna draw the wrong lessons from whatever is presented to them, so Hunter Killer should make no difference whatsoever. And for whatever Hunter Killer is, the phrase “should make no difference whatsoever” comes right after “cockamamie” on the list of relevant insights into this film.
♪In the town of Hollywood
Lived some men who made movie
And they told us of a tale
I wouldn’t have bought when I was three
See, they sailed into the port
Not one Yankee has ever seen
All to save the Russky Prez
From his subversive guillotine
They pretend they’re a Russian submarine
Russian submarine, Russian submarine
They pretend they’re a Russian submarine
Russian submarine, Russian submarine
Life will end if they don’t buy the smoke screen
There’s no escaping clean, this ruse is just obscene♫
Rated R, 122 Minutes
Director: Donavan Marsh
Writer: Arne Schmidt and Jamie Moss
Genre: “Are they buying it?” *Snicker* *Guffaw*
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who understand politics just enough to be really confused
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “This is just silly”
♪ Parody Inspired by “Yellow Submarine”
