Crimson Tide

365 Films

Entry #55

Crimson Tide (1995)

Directed by Tony Scott

One of the many pleasures of being a young, enterprising moviegoer is that every tired cinematic trick feels like a shot in the arm to you.  Well-worn tropes are like newly minted gems and the hoariest of clichés are presented as though discovered for the first time.  Crimson Tide is a perfect example of that because it traffics in pretty much every stylistic trope of the submarine movie genre yet emphasizes the human suspense in a way that makes it feel fresh and brand new.  I can literally remember my palms sweating while watching this film and yet I must have known in my heart of hearts that the world was not going to be obliterated in a nuclear hell storm at the end of it.  That’s the joy of youth: you always suspect the worst possible outcome for any given event.  Crimson Tide is so fascinating to me because it seems so quaint for a movie that’s not even of legal drinking age yet.  The remarkably restrained direction of the late Tony Scott makes it look like an Ozu film in comparison to his later work (seriously, have you seen Domino?).  I will give him full credit for his depiction of the two leads played by Gene Hackmen and Denzel Washington (with all due credit to the screenwriters too of course).  As the two dueling protagonists who squabble about the decision to fire nuclear weapons at Russia, neither one is right and neither one is wrong.  Both men are seen as having legitimate points of view; it’s just that they differ in their methods based on age and experience.  It should be noted that we are ultimately meant to side with the Washington character only because his decision will not result in a nuclear holocaust, but the Hackmen character is never presented as some sort of kill-crazy-foaming-at-the-mouth villain.  He could have very easily turned into Tom Berenger from Platoon but the filmmakers made a wise choice and one that considerably adds to the suspense.  This film is also a marker of a time when super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer actually made movies for every single member of the audience as opposed to just children.  Not that I’m asserting that he was ever a kind of creative genius but he used to have an uncanny knack for assembling talent and coordinating projects that at least had a college age level of maturity.  The funny thing about all this is that I’m sure there was another generation of filmgoers at the time of this film’s release bemoaning the loss of quality films at the multiplex.  They were probably making the exact same complaints as I am now only they were doing it through fan zines and primitive message boards as opposed to a swanky DIY blog.  I’m just saying that things really do never change.  Luckily, Crimson Tide came to me at the right age and at the right time and for whatever it’s flaws it is about as tight a piece of claustrophobic action suspense filmmaking that I can think of from the last twenty years. Add to that a faint level of sophistication and believable, morally challenged characters and you’ve got yourself a pretty damn good movie.  The idea of an action movie such as this being made without a villain today seems wildly implausible to me and Bruckheimer certainly would not make it.  Yet, it is that ephemeral quality that I believe has contributed to Crimson Tide’s lasting legacy.  It may not be the flawlessly immaculate piece of cinema I remember it being, but we most certainly don’t have anything else like it today.