Thursday, October 16, 2008

Crimson Tide


You know, the submarine flick. The captain (Gene Hackman) and the XO (played by Denzel Washington) are on deck just before submerging.
Hackman offers Washington a cigar.


"I don't trust air I can't see."



Actually, the movie's protaganist is Washington, playing a highly educated and civilized black Naval officer who has philosophical differences with the purposes of the weapon--a nuclear submarine carrying thermonuclear warheads--he is serving on .

I found myself supporting Hackman'a character, a crusty old timer who was one of the few submarine captains left-- so goes the script-- that had actually served in a fighting war. The movie is actually very good because the tension between the two excellent main actors is so well portrayed. Unfortunately, it ends up siding with what I'd call an Obamaesque approach to war: so utterly philosophically marinated that no actual military decision can be made, except perhaps the surgical, scalpel-like approach of ramming a Tomahawk missile down a camel's throat.






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