''Black Sea'' is a 2014

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

disaster A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

directed by Kevin Macdonald, written by

Dennis Kelly Dennis Kelly is a British scriptwriter for theatre, television and film. His play ''DNA'', first performed in 2007, became a core set-text for GCSE in 2010 and has been studied by approximately 400,000 students each year. He wrote the book ...

, and starring

Jude Law David Jude Heyworth Law (born 29 December 1972) is an English actor. He received a British Academy Film Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, two Tony Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. In 2007, he received an Honorary Césa ...

Scoot McNairy John Marcus "Scoot" McNairy (born November 11, 1977) is an American actor and film producer. He is known for his roles in ''Monsters'', ''Argo'', ''Killing Them Softly'', '' 12 Years a Slave'', '' Gone Girl'', and '' Batman v Superman: Dawn of J ...

Ben Mendelsohn Paul Benjamin Mendelsohn (born 3 April 1969) is an Australian actor. He first rose to prominence in Australia for his breakout role in ''The Year My Voice Broke'' (1987) and since then he has had roles in films such as '' Animal Kingdom'' (2010) ...

, and

David Threlfall David John Threlfall (born 12 October 1953) is an English stage, film and television actor and director. He is best known for playing Frank Gallagher in Channel 4's series '' Shameless''. He has also directed several episodes of the show. In Ap ...

. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 5 December 2014, and in the United States on 23 January 2015.

Plot

Robinson, a veteran captain of underwater salvage who is recently divorced and estranged from his young son, is made redundant by his firm Agora along with his friends Kurston and Blackie. A depressed Kurston informs them that he has come into possession of information that Agora had found the wreck of a Type VIICBased on Robinson studying plans for the ''

U-651 German submarine ''U-651'' was a German Type VIIC U-boat built for Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' for service during World War II. She was ordered just after the war started in 1939, laid down on 16 January 1940, launched on 21 December that y ...

'' to prepare for the expedition

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...

from

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

that sank off the coast of

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

carrying a cargo of gold worth millions, but were unable to salvage it due to territorial disputes following the

Russo-Georgian War The 2008 Russo-Georgian WarThe war is known by a variety of other names, including Five-Day War, August War and Russian invasion of Georgia. was a war between Georgia, on one side, and Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of Sou ...

. Robinson and Blackie meet with a mysterious man named Lewis, who agrees to fund their expedition to recover the gold in exchange for a substantial share of the profits and orders his executive Daniels to accompany the expedition. Robinson encounters a young man, Tobin, who claims to be a friend of Kurston and informs Robinson of Kurston's suicide. Robinson decides to take Tobin along on the expedition. A half-British, half-Russian crew is assembled with each man promised an equal share of the spoils. They travel to the

Port of Sevastopol 200px Sevastopol Marine Trade Port (SMTP) is a port in Sevastopol. It is located mainly at the Bay of Sevastopol, and at smaller bays around the Heracles peninsula. The port infrastructure is fully integrated with the city of Sevastopol and nava ...

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

and acquire an antiquated . The Russians view the young Tobin as a bad omen, mistakenly assuming he is a virgin when he is in fact an expecting father. With only Blackie speaking both Russian and English, communication difficulties lead to mounting tensions that culminate in a fight in which Fraser stabs Blackie in the chest. In the chaos, a fire breaks out, causing an explosion that cripples the sub, killing Blackie and Gittens, a British crew member, and knocking Robinson unconscious. He awakens 18 hours later to find the Russians have taken over half of the boat, with the British in the other half. The damaged vessel lies on the sea floor and its drive shaft is unusable, but sonar scans indicate they are close to the old U-boat and may be able to salvage and appropriate its drive shaft, as the Soviet submarine was based on the U-boat design. Robinson discovers another Russian crewman, Morozov, speaks English. Fraser, Peters, and Tobin traverse the sea bed and to their delight discover the wreck of the U-boat. They recover the drive shaft and the gold but Peters is killed when he falls down a trench and his air hose is accidentally severed. The crew complete repairs and the sub resumes its journey. Before they surface, Daniels admits to Robinson that the men are heading into a trap; their previous employer Agora deliberately leaked the details of the U-boat's location to them via Kurston, who is in fact alive, in the hope that they would salvage the gold, leaving Agora to claim it after the men are captured by the waiting Russian Navy. Robinson decides to remain submerged and travel to

Samsun Samsun, historically known as Sampsounta ( gr, Σαμψούντα) and Amisos (Ancient Greek: Αμισός), is a List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, city on the north coast of Turkey and is a major Black Sea port. In 2021, Samsun reco ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, necessitating a risky journey through a narrow trench to avoid their pursuers. Daniels, desperate for rescue, persuades Fraser to murder Zaytsev, the engine mechanic, thus forcing Robinson's hand since there are no longer enough men to safely operate the sub. A second explosion sends the sub back to the seafloor and pierces the hull. Fraser and the rest of the remaining crew try to repair the leaks but their efforts are futile. Before they can escape, a panicked Daniels locks a bulkhead, leaving three men to drown, but traps himself in the next compartment with his snagged clothing. Morozov closes the final bulkhead, leaving Daniels to drown and protecting Robinson, Tobin, and himself in the torpedo section where Robinson has hidden three escape suits. Robinson evacuates Tobin and Morozov and explains to Tobin that he will follow in the third suit using an emergency lever. Both men surface, whereupon Morozov informs the young Tobin that there was no emergency lever and that Robinson had chosen to sacrifice himself. Soon afterwards, the third suit appears, containing some of the gold and a picture of Robinson's family.

Cast

as Captain Robinson. He has nearly 30 years of experience with submarines, and he was recently fired from Agora after 11 years of employment. *

as Daniels, a representative for Lewis who accompanies the expedition. *

Konstantin Khabensky Konstantin Yurievich Khabensky, PAR (russian: link=no, Константин Юрьевич Хабенский; born 11 January 1972) is a Russian actor of stage and film, director and philanthropist. From 1997 he was part of the Saint Petersbu ...

as Blackie, a Russian who helps arrange the purchase of the submarine and is an intermediary between Captain Robinson and the Russian crew. *

Bobby Schofield Bobby or Bobbie may refer to: People * Bobby (given name), a list of names * Bobby (actress), from Bangladesh * Bobby (rapper) (born 1995), from South Korea * Bobby (screenwriter) (born 1983), Indian screenwriter * Bobby, old slang for a consta ...

as Tobin, a 18-year old friend of Kurston. He becomes part of the crew after Kurston commits suicide. *

as Fraser, a diver who is a psychopath, and who has been in and out of prison. *

Michael Smiley Michael Smiley (born 1963) is a Northern Irish comedian and actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the films ''Kill List'' (2011) and ''The Lobster'' (2015). Early life Smiley was born in 1963 in Belfast and grew up in Holywood with a ...

as Reynolds, who served with Captain Robinson in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. He is currently a paper carrier after getting fired from the steelyards. *

as Peters, who had also served with Captain Robinson in the Royal Navy. He most recently has been working as a janitor. *

Grigoriy Dobrygin Grigoriy Eduardovich Dobrygin (''also trans.'' Grigory; russian: Григо́рий Эдуа́рдович Добры́гин; born 17 February 1986) is a Russian film and theatre actor, director and producer. A classically trained ballet dance ...

as Morozov, a Russian navigator. *

Sergei Puskepalis Sergei Vytautovich Puskepalis ( rus, Сергей Витаутович Пускепалис; 15 April 1966 – 20 September 2022) was a Russian actor and theatre director. He is best known for his roles in the award-winning movies '' Simple Thing ...

as Zaytsev, a Russian who has expertise in submarine engines. * Sergei Kolesnikov as Levchenko, a Russian who has expertise in submarine electric systems. He also cooks for the crew. * Sergei Veksler as Baba, a Russian who has expertise in

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...

(the "best ears in the Russian Navy"). *

Tobias Menzies Tobias Simpson Menzies (born 7 March 1974) is an English stage, television and film actor. He is known for playing Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in the third and fourth seasons of Netflix's series ''The Crown'', for which he won the Primetime ...

as Lewis, the financial backer for the expedition. * Daniel Ryan as Kurston, a former co-worker with Captain Robinson, who was also fired from Agora. *

Karl Davies Karl Davies (born 6 August 1982) is an English actor, and voice actor, who portrayed Lyle Anderson in the TV series '' Kingdom''. Previously he had portrayed Robert Sugden in the ITV soap opera ''Emmerdale''. Career Davies took over the role ...

as Liam. He works for Agora in Human Resources, and delivers the news that Robinson has been fired. * Branwell Donaghey as Gittens, a diver with a gambling problem who hadn't worked in years. He is also knowledgeable of diesel engines. *

Jodie Whittaker Jodie Whittaker (born 17 June 1982) is an English actress who is best known for portraying the thirteenth incarnation of the Doctor in ''Doctor Who'' (2017–2022) and as Beth Latimer in ''Broadchurch'' (2013–2017). She came to prominence ...

as Chrissy, Captain Robinson's ex-wife.

Production

On 14 February 2012, news confirmed that director Kevin Macdonald was working with writer

on his new film project ''Black Sea''. On 25 April 2013,

Focus Features Focus Features LLC is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast as part of Universal Pictures, a division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in th ...

acquired the international distribution rights to the film for

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

, but when Focus Features International was shut down on 31 December 2013, Sierra / Affinity took over international sales for the film as

distribute the film and '' Kill the Messenger'' when it was announced on 5 February 2014.

Casting

On 25 April 2013,

joined the cast of ''Black Sea'' as the lead actor.

joined the cast of the film on 17 June 2013, in the role of a sailor who convinces the captain to undertake a mission.

Filming

On 8 August 2013, Focus Features CEO

James Schamus James Allan Schamus (born September 7, 1959) is an American screenwriter, producer, business executive, film historian, professor, and director. He is a frequent collaborator of Ang Lee, the co-founder of the production company Good Machine, and ...

and co-CEO Andrew Karpen announced that the shooting of the film ''Black Sea'' has started in the United Kingdom. The filming of scenes took place on the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, East Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

Strood Strood is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in Kent, South East England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rochester, Gillingham and Rainham. It lies on the northwest bank of the River Medway at its lowes ...

. The ex- Soviet Navy Foxtrot-class submarine "U-475 ''Black Widow''",Not its original name, but a name given to it by its private owners. Soviet Foxtrot-class subs were not named, and the Soviets never used U- designations. which is moored on the Medway near Rochester and Strood, was used for some exterior shots. A scene showing the submarine setting sail shows

Grain Power Station Grain Power Station is a Combined cycle, CCGT power station and former Fossil fuel power station, oil-fired power station in Kent, England, with operational capacity of owned by Uniper (formerly E.ON UK). Oil-fired power station Grain was bui ...

(or possibly Kingsnorth Power Station) in the background, briefly, though the submarine itself is likely CGI since the actual U-475 is not seaworthy.

Release

''Black Sea'' was released on 5 December 2014, in British cinemas. It had a limited release in the US on 23 January 2015.

Reception

On review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "''Black Sea'' may not be particularly deep, but thanks to Kevin Macdonald's judicious direction and a magnetic performance from Jude Law, it remains an efficiently well-crafted thriller." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100, based on reviews from 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Writing about its influences from ''

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' (originally titled ''Der Schatz der Sierra Madre'') is a 1927 adventure novel by German author B. Traven, whose identity remains unknown. In the book, two destitute American men in Mexico of the 1920s join a ...

'' and '' Sorcerer'',

Mark Kermode Mark James Patrick Kermode (, ; ; born 2 July 1963) is an English film critic, musician, radio presenter, television presenter and podcaster. He is the chief film critic for ''The Observer'', contributes to the magazine ''Sight & Sound'', prese ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' said, "While it may not rival the films to which it alludes, this remains a convincingly muscular genre piece with plenty of dramatic clout."

Awards

Notes

References

External links

* * * * {{Kevin Macdonald 2014 films 2010s disaster films 2014 thriller drama films American thriller drama films British disaster films British thriller drama films Disaster thriller films 2010s Russian-language films 2010s adventure drama films Black Sea in fiction Films about death Films about race and ethnicity Films about racism Films directed by Kevin Macdonald (director) Films scored by Ilan Eshkeri Films set in England Films set in Crimea Films shot in England Submarine films Treasure hunt films Underwater action films Film4 Productions films 2014 drama films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films 2010s British films