''Kursk'' (UK: ''Kursk: The Last Mission'', US: ''The Command'') is a 2018
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 ...
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
-
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
Thomas Vinterberg
Thomas Vinterberg (; born 19 May 1969) is a Danish film director who, along with Lars von Trier, co-founded the Dogme 95 movement in filmmaking, which established rules for simplifying movie production. He is best known for the films ''The Celeb ...
, based on Robert Moore's book ''A Time to Die'', about the true story of the
2000 ''Kursk'' submarine disaster. It stars
Matthias Schoenaerts
Matthias Schoenaerts (; ; born 8 December 1977) is a Belgian actor. He made his film debut at the age of 13 in '' Daens'' (1992), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He is best known for his roles as Filip in ...
,
Léa Seydoux
Léa Hélène Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne (; born 1 July 1985) is a French actor. Known for her roles in both French cinema and in Hollywood she's received various accolades including the Cannes Film Festival's Trophée Chopard in 2009 as well ...
,
Peter Simonischek
Peter Simonischek (born 6 August 1946) is an Austrian people, Austrian actor. He is a celebrated stage performer and has been a regular ensemble member of the Burgtheater since 1999. He often appears at the Salzburg Festival and has played the ti ...
,
August Diehl,
Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow ( , ; born Carl Adolf von Sydow; 10 April 1929 – 8 March 2020) was a Swedish-French actor. He had a 70-year career in European and American cinema, television, and theatre, appearing in more than 150 films and several television ...
, and
Colin Firth. It was the last film featuring von Sydow to be released before his death in March 2020.
Plot
The
Russian Navy's Northern Fleet
Severnyy flot
, image = Great emblem of the Northern Fleet.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Northern Fleet's great emblem
, start_date = June 1, 1733; Sov ...
begins an exercise in the
Barents Sea
The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...
. The fleet deployed includes ''
Kursk
Kursk ( rus, Курск, p=ˈkursk) is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym rivers. The area around Kursk was the site of a turning point in the Soviet–German stru ...
'', an
Oscar-class submarine
The Oscar class, Soviet designations Project 949 ''Granit'' and Project 949A ''Antey'', (NATO reporting names Oscar I and Oscar II respectively), are a series of nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines designed in the Soviet Union for the Sov ...
. At sea, weapons officer Pavel Sonin reports that the interior temperature of a
HTP torpedo is increasing rapidly, indicating a potential hydrogen peroxide leak. The captain however ignores Pavel's concerns and moments later the torpedo prematurely explodes, killing the weapons room crew. A secondary explosion of the remaining torpedoes rips a hole through the submarine's forward hull, sending the ship to the sea bed.
The surviving crew members rally at the aft-most compartment, now rapidly taking on water. The crew desperately await rescue, while on dry land the sailor's wives begin to hear rumours regarding the submarine.
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 ...
Commodore
David Russell detects the seismic events and deduces that Kursk has had an accident. Admiral Grudzinsky, commander of the Northern Fleet, initially believes there are no survivors, but once tapping is heard through the hull of the submarine, the Russians immediately deploy a rescue submersible. The old and poorly maintained craft can not form a seal on the Kursk's hull, and is forced to return to the surface and wait for a 12-hour battery recharge.
Meanwhile, the survivors begin to run low on air, requiring two crew members to swim into a flooded compartment to retrieve
oxygen cartridges. Another rescue attempt is made, but the submersible again cannot form a seal on the hull. On land, the sailors' families, wives and friends grow resentful of the repeated stone-walling by the Russian Admiralty, who also reject foreign offers of help in fear of exposing Russian naval secrets. Despite this, Admiral Grudzinsky accepts an earlier offer from Russell, but Grudzinsky is relieved of command shortly afterwards. The Russian Navy orders Russell, along with British and Norwegian divers, not to approach the Kursk. A third Russian attempt to rescue the survivors is made, but again the Russian submersible still cannot force a seal, and the Russians ultimately and finally agree to foreign assistance.
Aboard the Kursk, the crew in an attempt to raise morale, enjoy a "breakfast buffet", during which a crew member accidentally knocks an oxygen cartridge into the water, causing a flash fire that consumes the remaining oxygen. With minutes of breathable air, the crew say their goodbyes whilst singing "The Sailor's Band". Russell's divers arrive too late at the submarine, finding the entire hull flooded and the crew dead. At the funeral, Misha, son of one of the sailors on board, refuses to shake Admiral Petrenko's hand. A land-based member of the crew gives Misha his father's maritime watch; his father had earlier sold it so that he could buy champagne for Pavel Sonin's wedding.
Cast
Michael Nyqvist
Rolf Åke Mikael Nyqvist (; 8 November 1960 – 27 June 2017) was a Swedish actor. Educated at the School of Drama in Malmö, he became well known for playing police officer Banck in the 1997–1998 Martin Beck TV series and for his leading ro ...
filmed scenes which were deleted from the final cut.
Production
Development
On 17 August 2015, it was announced that
EuropaCorp
EuropaCorp S.A. (stylised in opening logo as EUROPA CORP.) is a French motion picture company headquartered in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, and one of a few full service independent studios that both produces and distributes feature ...
was developing a film based on the 2000 K-141 Kursk submarine disaster, and that
Martin Zandvliet
Martin Pieter Zandvliet (born 7 January 1971 in Fredericia) is a Danish film director and screenwriter.
Career
Zandvliet originally began as an editor, before writing and directing the documentary ''Angels of Brooklyn'' in 2002. His first ...
had been hired to direct the film from a script by
Robert Rodat
Robert Rodat (born c. 1960) is an American film and television writer and television producer. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for writing Steven Spielberg's war epic ''Saving Private Ryan''.
Career
Rodat wrot ...
, based on Robert Moore's 2002 book ''A Time to Die''. ''Kursk'' would have been Zandvliet's first English-language film.
On 21 January 2016, it was reported that Zandvliet was no longer attached and that EuropaCorp had hired Thomas Vinterberg to direct the film.
On 2 March 2016,
Matthias Schoenaerts
Matthias Schoenaerts (; ; born 8 December 1977) is a Belgian actor. He made his film debut at the age of 13 in '' Daens'' (1992), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He is best known for his roles as Filip in ...
was announced in the cast, reteaming with Vinterberg after ''
Far from the Madding Crowd'' (2015).
Colin Firth joined the cast on 26 May 2016.
Léa Seydoux
Léa Hélène Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne (; born 1 July 1985) is a French actor. Known for her roles in both French cinema and in Hollywood she's received various accolades including the Cannes Film Festival's Trophée Chopard in 2009 as well ...
joined the cast on 7 February 2017, in the role of Tanya, the wife of Mikhail Averin, a Russian Navy captain-lieutenant played by Matthias Schoenaerts.
Rachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams (born November 17, 1978) is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre degree program at York University in 2001, she worked in Canadian television and film productions, such as the drama film ''Perfect Pie'' (200 ...
was once in talks for the role of Tanya.
''
Deadline Hollywood
''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. The site is updated several times a day, with ...
'' also reported that Firth would play
David Russell, a British naval commander going against Russia's warnings to try to save the men on the ''Kursk''.
On 15 March 2017, it was reported that
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
's character had been cut from the film before an actor was cast for the role.
According to ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'',
EuropaCorp's president,
Luc Besson
Luc Paul Maurice Besson (; born 18 March 1959) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed or produced the films ''Subway'' (1985), '' The Big Blue'' (1988), and '' La Femme Nikita'' (1990). Besson is associated with the ' ...
, wanted to shift the story's focus to the rescue mission rather than the politics behind the disaster. One theory noted by ''The Hollywood Reporter'' is that nobody at EuropaCorp wanted to be hacked. (The film ''
The Interview
''The Interview'' is a 2014 satirical alternate history action-comedy film co-produced and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in their second directorial work, following ''This Is the End'' (2013). The screenplay was written by Dan Ste ...
'' had angered
Kim Jong-un
Kim Jong-un (; , ; born 8 January 1982) is a North Korean politician who has been Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011 and the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) since 2012. He is a son of Kim Jong-il, who was North Korea's sec ...
and was believed to have sparked the
Sony hack
On November 24, 2014, a hacker group identifying itself as " Guardians of Peace" leaked a release of confidential data from the film studio Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE). The data included personal information about Sony Pictures employe ...
in 2014.
) Putin had been Russian president for eight months when the tragedy had occurred. He was supposed to appear as a supporting character in at least five scenes and was sympathetically portrayed in the original ''Kursk'' script, which highlighted why he had taken the tragedy personally (Putin's father had been a submariner).
Pre-production
On 8 May 2017,
Peter Simonischek
Peter Simonischek (born 6 August 1946) is an Austrian people, Austrian actor. He is a celebrated stage performer and has been a regular ensemble member of the Burgtheater since 1999. He often appears at the Salzburg Festival and has played the ti ...
,
Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow ( , ; born Carl Adolf von Sydow; 10 April 1929 – 8 March 2020) was a Swedish-French actor. He had a 70-year career in European and American cinema, television, and theatre, appearing in more than 150 films and several television ...
and
Michael Nyqvist
Rolf Åke Mikael Nyqvist (; 8 November 1960 – 27 June 2017) was a Swedish actor. Educated at the School of Drama in Malmö, he became well known for playing police officer Banck in the 1997–1998 Martin Beck TV series and for his leading ro ...
were announced in the cast.
However, Nyqvist died on 27 June.
Alexandre Desplat
Alexandre Michel Gérard Desplat (; born 23 August 1961) is a French film composer and conductor. He has won many awards, including two Academy Awards, for his musical scores to the films '' The Grand Budapest Hotel'' and '' The Shape of Water'' ...
composed the movie score. The crew includes Catherine Marchand as the costume designer,
Anthony Dod Mantle
Anthony Dod Mantle, (born 14 April 1955) is a British cinematographer and still photographer. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography, BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for ''Slum ...
as the director of photography,
Thierry Flamand as the production designer
and Valdis Oskardottir as the film's editor.
Subject matter experts such as journalist Robert Moore (author of the novel upon which the film is based),
David Russell (British Royal Navy commodore who had tried to save the men from the ''Kursk''), and submarine expert Ramsey Martin acted as advisors for the film.
The project was produced by France's EuropaCorp with Belgium's Belga Productions and Luxembourg's VIA EST.
Filming
Shooting was scheduled to start in September 2016, but it had to be postponed due to Russia's defence ministry not issuing a permit for shooting in the country, which would run for about a month. According to ''The Hollywood Reporter'', Russia's defense ministry originally promised cooperation with the crew to provide realism to the movie. However, later it reportedly grew concerned about granting access to classified information and sensitive locations.
On 7 February 2017, ''
ScreenDaily.com'' reported that shooting was scheduled to start in April.
Filming started at the Naval base of
Toulon
Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...
, France, on 26 April 2017. Some scenes were filmed with
Colin Firth at the commercial port of
Brest, France
Brest (; ) is a port city in the Finistère department, Brittany. Located in a sheltered bay not far from the western tip of the peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French mi ...
, between 2 May and 6 May 2017, including scenes aboard the rescue ship Atlantic Tonjer, serving as the Seaway Eagle. On 8 May 2017, it was reported that shooting would take place not only in France but also in locations throughout Europe, including Belgium and Norway.
On 12 July 2017, the crew was in
Jette
Jette (, ) is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the north-western part of the region, it is bordered by the City of Brussels, Ganshoren, Koekelberg, and Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, as well as the Flemi ...
(
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
) and scenes were filmed in "Salle Excelsior" (Place Cardinal Mercier).
Release
The film premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...
on 6 September 2018, where Thomas Vinterberg (director) and Artemiy Spiridonov (actor) presented the film in English and Russian languages. The film was scheduled to be released through
DirecTV Cinema
DirecTV Cinema (previously known as Direct Ticket, Blockbuster Ticket, Blockbuster Pay-Per-View Movies, and DirecTV Pay-Per-View) is DirecTV's video on demand and pay-per-view platform for film content. Films are released as is done on other pay- ...
on 23 May 2019, before being released in a
limited release
__FORCETOC__
Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
on 21 June 2019, by
Saban Films
Saban Capital Group LLC is an American investment firm based in Los Angeles, California focused on media, entertainment, and communications investments. Formed in 2010 by Haim Saban, Saban Capital Group owns Saban Films, part of Univision Commu ...
.
Reception
On the review aggregator 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 consensus reads, "''The Command'' plumbs the depths of real-life disaster to tell an uneven yet reasonably diverting story of lives caught between bureaucracy and certain doom." 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 ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on results from 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
See also
*
List of Submarine films
References
External links
*
{{Thomas Vinterberg
2018 films
2010s disaster films
Belgian drama films
Belgian disaster films
French drama films
French disaster films
Luxembourgian drama films
EuropaCorp films
Saban Films films
Disaster films based on actual events
2010s English-language films
English-language Belgian films
English-language French films
English-language Luxembourgian films
Films about seafaring accidents or incidents
Films about survivors of seafaring accidents or incidents
Films based on non-fiction books
Films scored by Alexandre Desplat
Films set in Russia
Films shot in France
Films shot in Belgium
Films shot in Norway
Films directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Seafaring films based on actual events
Submarine films
2018 drama films
2010s French films