The Command Reviews

Following the current coronavirus crisis, my TV provider gave us some extra movie channels so I decided to give it a try and check this movie. Well, I always had a weak spot for movies dealing with submarines and this one definitely had some potential. First of all, you might think at first that there is something wrong with your TV-set but, don’t worry, that’s not the case. Apparently, Vinterberg thought it would be clever to shoot the scenes outside the submarine with a smaller resolution creating some kind of cramped claustrophobic feeling but it might have worked better the other way around. At least, as soon as we finally got into the sub, the damned thing finally started to get interesting and, following the explosions, the distress and even despair experienced by the crew was really well handled by Vinterberg. I have to admit that I didn’t know this real-life story before watching this movie but I think it allowed me to enjoy more this movie since I didn’t know what would happen next. Anyway, fairly quickly, I mean, for the viewers but probably not for the crew of the Kursk, it was discovered that there were some survivors and it seemed that they should be rescued after all. Unfortunately, the whole thing lost its edge from this point and, in my opinion, it became some rather shameless anti-Russia propaganda. Indeed, it is pretty obvious that, even though they managed to find the survivors, the Russian authorities would never manage to save these men themselves and, yet, they refused any help until it was too late. Well, it might have sounded intriguing for a news article but, for a movie, it was pretty tedious to go back and forth between the Evil Russian government, the Righteous Western authorities, the desperate survivors and their loved ones. The main issue was that there was no real depth in the characters and their motivations and, as a result, I had a hard time to really care about what they were going through. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, even if it is probably one of the weaker movies delivered by Thomas Vinterberg so far.