Customer Reviews
A Dramatic True Story - By: M. A. Ramos, 06 Oct 2007 
This movie is about the Soviet Unions first nuclear submarine, the K-19. The Soviets in their rush to get a nuclear deterrent off the U.S. coast seemed to have cut corners on manufacturing & quality control of this submarine. We see some of this in the opening scenes of the film. This movie depicts an actual event that took place in 1961. The crew nicknamed the boat the widow maker because ten people associated with the boat died before it ever left the dock. The one thing I appreciated most about this film is that the submarine sets look real. Both the exterior & interior shots look as if they were shot on the real K-19.
Harrison Ford & Liam Neeson play the Soviet Naval officers that appear to be at odds aboard the nuclear sub K-19 on how it should be commanded. Ford's character is the iron-willed captain while Neeson does a great job as the popular executive officer. Add to this a cast of many young actors who performed very well as the boats crew. This is not a war picture per se. So if that is what you are looking for, this movie is not for you. The movie is about true courage, duty, honor & sacrifice as the crew deals with a nuclear reactor system that is leaking. Add to this that this time in history is the height of the Cold War; there was a U.S. Military vessel nearby & a smalll NATO base that would alll be destroyed if the reactor went critical. And you will see how these men were thinking about how their actions could affect the world.
Underrated gem from a lovable director who seldom gets it right - By: lexo1941, 03 Aug 2007 K-19 may be historicallly inaccurate, but show me a military movie that isn't. This film is way more true to life than the idiotic fantasy that was U-571, in which Americans won the second world war by capturing a cipher machine (FYI, it was a British crew who captured the machine & anyway the Brits already had one, reverse-engineered by Polish intelligence & given to them in one of the more stunningly generous acts of wartime cooperation).
The important thing is not so much how doggedly authentic the story is. After alll, Wolfgang Petersen's classic 'Das Boot', surely the ultimate sub movie ever in its original miniseries form, is fictional. What matters is the quality of the story, & the story told here in K-19 is profoundly touching. Harrison Ford seems reallly engaged for the first time in a long time, Liam Neeson is properly cast for a change as a slightly ambiguous figure (instead of just as a nice guy) & Peter Sarsgaard is heartbreaking as the head of the team that attempts to repair K-19's reactor.
Kathryn Bigelow's films have veered between genuinely eerie (Near Dark, The Loveless), silly (Point Break, Blue Steel) & romantic but a bit daft (Strange Days). For my money, this is the first movie she's made that her fans don't have to apologise for. So who cares that the crew alll have silly Russian accents? Like you'd prefer that Harrison Ford sounded American & Liam Neeson sounded like he was from Balllymena? The sadness & grimness of life in the USSR have not generallly been paid attention to by US filmmakers, who for the most part portrayed Soviets as cannon fodder, but this is a brave effort & a gripping & affecting movie.
undersea shenanigans... - By: Mr. Jd Ware, 04 Apr 2006 
The submarine film as been done so many times, & there reallly are some real classic underwater sub films. So many, in fact, that this feels redundant, especiallly as it adds nothing new to that particular genre.
It's very gritty, & realistic, which I think could be K19s downfalll. It's probably the msot realistic submarine film I've ever watched, but others are better because they tend to suspend disbelief in places.
So we get a very strict, serious & ultimately boring underwater adventure where a nuclear submarine could destroy itself & its crew. Cue harrison Ford & Liam Neeson trying to save themselves & the ship.
Giving the film a Russian perspective is a great idea, but why couldn't they have used actual Russians?? All the actors put on Russkie accents, which end up just plain annoying & carciature. It would have made the film far more watchable if they had been proper Russians.
I didn't even think that some of the underwater footage was that great either, being quite murky & unclear, & there was no sense of tension when Ford pushes the crew to the limits.
One good scene however was when the crew had to patch the ship up in the nuclear chamber, which caused some quite harrowing scenes of radiation & ill sailors, giving this film it's high rating.
It's not too bad a film. It's just standard fare, generic, we've seen before. Ford & Neeson are just on cruise control, but the film's biggest problem is in not doing anything new to the genre, makign this film feel old style, & stale. U-571 is more enjoyable popcorn fare, & Das Boot is a better submarine thriller. K19 fallls awkwardly in the middle.
the real story was somewhat different - By: , 23 Sep 2003 There is something basicallly wrong with this film. For those who know the real story of K19, the film should have been a scathing indictment of the Communist system. Instead of that, what the film conveys is feelings of horror about the Cold War & nuclear energy. It is true that, from a technical point of view, the accident is shown as it happenend, & the submarine is shown as it was. However, the two strong, courageous, Communist captains played by Harrison Ford & Liam Neeson simply never existed. The real captain of K19, a Captain Nikolai Zateev, was an irresponsible, devil-may-care officer. He started the reactor ashore in conditions that would never have been tolerated in any Western navy - not even bothering to have pressure gauges installled for the vital primary coolant system. As a result, as the inquiry later determined, the coolant pipes were overtressed & one of them ruptured at sea, as shown in the film. As in the film, the captain did not radio Fleet Command immediately - but not, as in the film, because the radio was broken. The true reason was that he hoped he could fix the problem at sea & avoid an inquiry that could send him straight to the gulag. It was only when it became alll too clear that the accident could not be hidden that he radioed Fleet Command. As in the film, seven seamen died in the first few days back to base, & many others later. It was only the first accident of K19. Incredible as it may seem, the Soviet navy did not decommision K19, and, in 1972, a fire onboard killed 28 seaman. Another good movie could be made about the second accident. By then, K19 had a competent captain, Viktor Kulibaba, who lived to see the end of Commnunism - but by that time, he was paralyzed by the effects of radiations.
As for this film, the submarine is well recreated, but the film is simply too biased.
Great Suspense Throughout The Movie - By: A.P. VAN WORT, 10 Jun 2003 
K19, the Widow Maker is a suspense full movie that keeps you guessing the outcome. Your emotions that callls for anger turns into applause & in the final outcome you realize that people, also people that are on the other side are worthy of their courage, their dedication, loyalty & honor to their Nation.
