Midweek Mention... K-19 The Widowmaker

K-19 The Widowmaker

Reegs:

Was this a sequel to the K 9 movie with John Belushi? No,

Dan: this was K 18. No, this is K 19 Widow

Sidey: This is the beginning of Submarine Week.

Dan: This is what everybody, everybody's seen this film. Until you start watching it, you realize, no, this is one that I hadn't seen.

Sidey: Had you heard, because this is a

Dan: yeah, I've heard

Sidey: had you heard of the submarine before? Because I hadn't. I didn't know if these were going to be, so I thought there was going to be Soviets

Dan: I'd heard of

Sidey: and US, but it's really just Soviet.

Dan: Yeah, oh right, I'd heard of like this film before, and I'd heard of submarines

Sidey: Right, okay. But in the context of it together. Right,

Cris: okay. Same, same for me.

Sidey: Okay, so it was like, it was a new one for us all.

very nice. And so, it starts off, we're introduced to the original crew.

Cris: Yes.

Sidey: And in charge at this point is Liam Neeson.

Dan: Yes.

Sidey: he has a much more sensitive and he's more caring about his crew, shall we say. He's more friendly towards them and

Cris: lets

Sidey: And lets them get away with a few things. Yeah. And then when Harrison Ford comes on board...

Dan: stop that. That's right. So we, we see this, we see Lee and Nee Neeson.

He is getting on, well, they're joking around with the crew. He's, you know, obviously popular. Although he is in charge.

Sidey: well, first of all, we're

Cris: I know Well,

Sidey: screen to explain exactly what's going on and how this story hasn't been able to be told for X amount of years. And it is a true story, but embellished probably. We'll get into that at the end.

 It's, it's on a mission, but it's mission is to, it's this fucking huge, it's their first nuclear sub, I think.

Reegs: is it. Is it, the K 19, the window maker? Is that what it is? The submarine? It's, yeah, it's called,

Sidey: It's not, so I thought it would be called the window maker because of it's like massive killing potential. It's not, it's because so many people died making it.

Reegs: Oh,

Sidey: And they, they speak about that because someone dies pretty early on. And it's mission effectively is to go out. Fuck off across the water, under some ice, crashed through the ice and launched a missile for a test run.

Dan: Yeah, what, what they want to do, the, the Russian generals is prove to the world that this works

Reegs: the world that this worked. Are they all attempting Russian accents or are they, are

Sidey: this is what started to bug me. Harrison Ford does a kind of attempt at a sort of, and you feel like his heart's not really in it, like Sean Cony or Sean Connery was.

Dan: and you feel like Sean Connery just went all in, didn't he? I'll just go full Scottish as my Russian.

Reegs: As my Lithuanian, yeah.

Dan: there's no point. I'll just do it in Scottish. But, yeah, the, the Russians have such an important mission. They bring in Harrison Ford, who's like, gonna be the super submarine naval officer.

And he's telling them at the start, right at the beginning, In the room in the kind of the war room. I'm not sure this is possible. I'm not sure we can do this and they're saying No, it is possible. You will do it crack on. So he's had his orders He's given a little bit of pushback, but then they've said no no you're doing this so he

Reegs: a

Dan: Right from the top. Yes

Sidey: a the job as well. There's a bit of a... A bit of... I think his wife is connected to someone higher up. So he gets installed. But we get a tour of the sub with him. Everything's fucking leaking. It looks like a really fucking pound shop. And then when they get to the actual nuclear reactor bit, the fucking man in charge is asleep.

He finds him asleep, just having a little snooze, his head up against the reactor.

Dan: then he says, oh, we're not expecting him until tomorrow. I need to make sure I'm ready or something like that. And then obviously the guy was asleep. So it

Cris: but, he's arrived a day early. he goes to see Liam Neeson, and then he says like, Oh, we weren't expecting you until tomorrow. And he's like, I need to make sure I'm ready or something like that.

And then obviously the guy was

Sidey: Mm-hmm. . So it doesn't go well. The first one?

Dan: doesn't go well does it? How this kind of nuclear reactor area works and Liam Neeson Tries to defend him and say look, he's really bad But this guy's the best and he goes don't worry We'll get somebody else Harrison Ford's like wants to make an example. It's the first guy he's seen he's asleep on duty Quite right.

He wants him But obviously Liam Neeson knows how important he is, but another guy eventually joins the crew just straight out of the academy.

Sidey: And he's looking about 12 years old in this. Because this is 2002. Yeah. So he was dead young.

 They are now giving their orders, this is what we're going to do, and they're giving a date, and you see all the higher ups give the orders, you're out, you're going out there to do it. So they've got to load up we see all the the admin and the stocking up of the, the supplies.

There's, so there's a box of tomatoes, and I was thinking, not tomatoes oranges, and I think, surely they're going to be good for the first few days of the trip, and then they go off. Anyway.

Dan: There's also, importantly, a

Sidey: Well, there's a guy, you just hear him shouting, no, it's the wrong medicine.

It's the wrong medicine, and he's freaking out and he runs right through the ship. And I was quite impressed with the way it's filmed because obviously it must be fucking difficult having really tight, and I know they make it a film set, but still, it, it is impressive. And he runs out and he's trying to chase down the truck before it.

Leaves with some sort of medicine. We never actually learn what it is. Probably some anti anti fucking radiation medicine on stuff. But it, to do that, he just throws himself in front of a moving lorry Right. And is hit and then fucking you sees get rolled over.

Cris: Yeah, that's fairly early as well, it's

Dan: kind of this yeah, this mystery. You, you know that obviously something's wrong. A guy's, the doctor, the, the submarine doctor's run out the submarine. over the gangway, into the snowy street, thrown himself in front of a van, two hands waving in front of it, can't stop in time, rolls over him, and we don't learn exactly what is going on.

And all the people around are in a bit of a commotion as well, and none of them have picked up why the doctors run out in front of the van. So, I was kind of half expecting, oh, we're going to see that later on

Sidey: That's when they, they tell you about the, the name. They don't make explicit. Actually, no, but this is, this is when they tell you about the widow maker, because five people died during its construction, another four doing some other shit testing, and now the doctor makes it 10.

And then we have the ceremony where all the fucking military there, all the higher ups, and it's the launching of the. Boat and Harrison Ford gives a spiel about, I'm nothing without you. You are nothing without me. We're gonna do this for mother Russia, blah, blah, blah. And they, the lady then swings the bottle of champagne and they just go, D, it doesn't break.

Which is apparently really like fucking terrible luck on that. And one of the guys just narrates it for he go, oh no, we're cursed. Well, maybe.

Dan: And Tarrison

Reegs: So it's this big kind of political statement then that they're making, but it's underfunded horribly and falling

Sidey: Yeah, it's really like clearly shown to be like fairly

Cris: and, also the doctor that they bring over is like, oh, we got a new doctor. He's like, oh, so are you all right? Yeah. I'm actually the, the base doctor, like the, the naval base where they assemble this submarine.

He was a doctor and then he's like, oh we're not gonna be too long on the scene. No.

Dan: Yeah, he's never been on sea. He doesn't fancy going under.

Cris: is seasick.

Dan: He doesn't fancy going under the waves and yeah, he's thinking, it's not gonna take too too long, is it?

And he goes, you'll you'll be okay. So, so they begin this journey and right from the off, Harrison Ford,

Sidey: straightaway. drill.

Dan: drill. Let's do a drill. Let's do a drill. There's a fire in cabin four, you know, whatever it is. Tell me when you put it out. It comes back like 30 seconds or a minute outside the time frame that he wants.

He's furious. We'll keep running the drill. Okay. So you can imagine now there's drills going on everywhere all along the submarine. And he's trying to get their time down to a point where it would actually work and it would save them if there was a disaster going on but they're miles off it because Liam Neeson's been their friend too much to be honest and for a lot of them he's still the captain because this guy putting on turning the

Sidey: there's a couple of guys that keep looking at him when when they're giving orders they they look to him to see if that's all right but the next drill is harrison ford wants them to drop to 300 meters i

Cris: Well, 260 initially And

Sidey: then the the operational like limit is 250 so he's trying to push it he's trying to push it as far as they can go and beyond and they do do it.

It's fucking creaking . You can hear it

Dan: it's really, so, there's a lot of talk about it being a widow maker, about, you know, it, being unsafe or they've got the wrong rivets in there or whatever. And I think Harrison Ford just wants to build that confidence in the ship and in the crew.

So he puts him through this mad thing, you know, we'll never go this deep

Sidey: Well, Liam Mason storms off, doesn't he? He just goes be

Dan: He's saying this is really dangerous. The, the submarine at one point it pops, like, the pressure just kind of crushes a bit of the metal in, in a couple of areas and you can hear it all creaking and then they shoot up just as quickly as they came down

Sidey: Well, they do, they do the ice, don't they? They do the ice and then they do the launch and it's a success. You know, they have actually been able, they proved that they can launch this fucking device. That was pretty impressive because I was thinking, you know, to launch a fucking a, you know, ballistic missile like that from a sum it takes 'em doing.

Dan: Yeah, well, what they've had to do was they had no idea how thick the ice was. They were just guessing, given the time of year, it's probably only a metre thick or something. Looked a hell of a lot thicker than that, actually, as they're cracking through it and bursting through it.

They end up playing football on it afterwards, don't they, and having

Sidey: Well, in spite of all the rig roll and the fucking stress of being constantly put under drills, they're buzzing that they've been able to do it because ultimately they've fucking love Mother Russia and all that shit. And so Harrison Ford goes to see Liam Neeson. I can't remember that. It's like, let's say Igor and Victor,

Reegs: or something.

Sidey: yeah. And and he says, look, If you don't agree with what i'm doing, you know That was like insubordination really and also we need to push these guys as far as they can go And now they fucking know that when it comes to the crunch they can fucking do it So, you know, he feels vindicated but they I would say they go to quite great lengths to To paint harrison ford's characters, but the villain of the piece. He's constantly constantly pushing them And these other guys are undermining him looking at liam neeson and he's you know, he's not always on board But it fucking pivots later on. Really took me by surprise I thought. I don't know, should we get straight to

Dan: Yeah, go on, go straight

Sidey: Because they, essentially the nuclear reactor starts to go awry. Which is sub optimal when you're confined.

Reegs: And you bend off the guy who, the only guy who

Sidey: the guy who really... So the guy, Peter Skarsgård's character Vaseline or whatever he's called he... He was top of his class, but again, never seen active duty, never been, you know, in a sub before.

Dan: you know, in a few subplots now, but, I mean, they were going

Sidey: I mean, they were going... The whole time watching it, I was just thinking about the Ukraine stuff, and now you hear about how, like, a poor leader, you know, underfunded, and their military's just, like, complete shambles. What was...

Cris: yeah, Kursk? Yeah,

Sidey: So they have to effectively send people into the reactor core with a blowtorch to do some welding on a A shift, I think they're allowed 10 minutes

Cris: 10 minutes in.

Sidey: And they just wear a coat and

Cris: suit, they said, this is not anti radiation, this is

Sidey: doing nothing

Dan: basically a painter's coat they've got on, wrapped up or

Sidey: a gas mask but again, I mean it's just

Dan: So, so they, they're going into the nuclear reactor.

Reegs: No, I think he,

Dan: No, I think he, again, he was off to medicine or something, but he might have, you know, it might have been the whole list of

Sidey: There's, there's quite a lot of tapping on dials in this film and at this point they're tapping on the core temperature and it's gone up, like, it's at

Dan: gets to a thousand, everybody's

Sidey: 950,

Reegs: do they cool it?

Sidey: They have to weld the, the

Cris: to put... They have 300 tons of fresh water

Reegs: on board. Oh yeah, okay, so use that. So, if

Cris: they weld the pipes in a certain way, but they have to weld it inside the reactor

Sidey: Yeah, and then a guy has to go and turn the thing to let the water in to cool it down. And so we get another shot of the dial of the temperature

Dan: And and so they're chosen to go in in teams and and one of the guy who Originally read the readings wrong. He's going in the first one, but

Sidey: think some of the dials don't even work because he keeps banging some and they just

Dan: Stars guard is is going in third. He's there The nuclear reactor expert. He's going to go in with the last group and just ensure that everything's been fixed properly.

So when it comes around to his turn to go, he's lost it. He's totally lost it. He's,

Reegs: The pressure's

Dan: pressure is absolutely got to him. I mean, he's leagues under the sea here and he's just out of his

Sidey: We see the state of some of these guys when they're hauled out, they're so fucked from the

Dan: They're puke. They're puking. They didn't last.

Sidey: face is like

Dan: It says afterwards that they lasted days these guys and they would have been in the most extreme but after 10

Sidey: minutes, they did actually do a load of research. What people would have looked like and they had to dial it right down because it was so

Reegs: Because it was so

Sidey: So awful for the firm it would that was only after 10 minutes and what it's doing is it's just billowing out Irradiated steam and so the whole place is fucked they go around with a Geiger counter and it's just like off the chart So they're pretty fucked and if only they could get a message out But they can't because going through the ice has fucked the

Reegs: antenna and the

Sidey: of the unit

Dan: But they, they do find themselves back into waters again and there's an American boat that is, has the possibility to help them.

Sidey: get all cheery, don't they? Because they see a helicopter coming towards them and as soon as it turns, they just see like US Navy on the side and they're like, fuck.

Reegs: side there like

Dan: And but given how dire it is, you know, a lot of them are thinking could do this, but not Harrison Ford. He would, you know, no chance I'm, I'm handing anything Russian over to the Americans. But they have gone up on top now and surfaced the sub and they're all on top of the sub because they don't want to be inside where all this radiation is.

So they're letting people out, getting a bit of fresh air.

Sidey: And the fix hasn't worked.

Dan: The fix hasn't worked, the temperature's still going, and then Starsguard has taken it on himself. I forget his name in the actual

Cris: Vasili

Sidey: Vassilio, yeah.

Dan: He's the, this young radio, you know, reaction operator, nuclear reactor, and He goes in on his own and he's been in there like 18 minutes before they realize he's a mess.

He's gone I think harrison ford goes in to pull him

Sidey: out. Well, he, so what happens is they, they say no, they, the US radio across and say, look, we'll help you you know, we're not gonna let you fucking die. And so that's their decision. Do they.

Cris: Let the Americans

Sidey: they go to the

Reegs: them help him.

Sidey: would be a huge PR

Reegs: yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or, you know,

Sidey: or, you know, this is their pride and joy is supposed to be of their fleet, and they're going to have to hand over to the Yanks, or do they dive, attempt some more repairs, and go off.

And at this point, The two guys who've been giving like side eye to Harrison Ford the whole time, they go full mutiny, pull a gun on him and they think that Liam Neeson's going to be with them, and he turns and says no he tricks them into giving them, he says, you know, yeah, yeah, just give me the gun, I'll

Reegs: He respects the chain of command.

Sidey: he, he puts them in For what do you call it? For court martial. Yeah, they're going to be court martialed. He tells them to fuck off and, and then shows his allegiance to the real, the captain. And he just says to them that this... Well, exactly. And Harrison Ford just kind of radios the crew and basically gives them the choice.

He just says this is, this is the situation. We could go up the... The fallout lol from this explosion would destroy the US and potentially cause nuclear world war

Reegs: go out in a blaze of

Sidey: No, he's like we don't want to we don't want to incite Because in the text of the front at the very start It says the u. s has got enough nukes to destroy the world 10 times over the russians two times over so that you know Everyone would lose everyone's gonna

Dan: and, and the fact that if this explodes, they won't have any

Sidey: No.

Dan: know, of why they did it. They, they might just consider the Americans

Reegs: of

Dan: did it as an act of aggression. So

Sidey: Everyone radios back to the captain to say, Yeah, we're with you let's dive. So they take the option to dive, To attempt some more repairs. That's when,

Dan: Vasily's already taken it on

Sidey: He's going in and doing some more welding.

Dan: And he was already, you know, the, the crew. We're just embarrassed for him, really, because they understand, you know, but he'd gone, he was completely just crying in the corner, another guy had to take his place, he's now been dragged out, awful,

Reegs: Yeah, he's lost his

Dan: the, yeah, he's lost, he's lost his mind, lost his health, this guy, but Vasily had lost all respect from everybody, and I guess he'd, you know, just thought, I've got to do this and, and gone in for this extraordinary long period of time to fix it and they do manage to then get this reactor temperature

Sidey: They get it down far enough that they're able to get back

Dan: It was weird, I thought they peaked a little bit early for that because it goes, it's 9. 50 and it goes. It's 9. 25. It's all red zone after about 400, you know, it's like, and he goes, Oh, it's, it's, it's 850. It's 800. And he goes, and he gets on the phone again and says, we've made it everyone. I'm thinking still fucking 800.

You know, it's still like 400 above safe levels. So you're not that safe, but yeah, they, they

Sidey: they're happy and happy.

He's kind of a hero because he's sacrificed himself to do some more welding. And they're able to get into safer waters far enough away where they can eventually get some kind of message out.

Dan: And their own boats come and

Sidey: the Russians come and get them and say, we'll tow you back in. And they're like, no fucking way, we're going to stay on this.

We can't stay on this, it's just, you know, the radiation's like going to kill us all.

Dan: know, the sub that comes,

Sidey: in. Another sub comes, a diesel powered one this time. And we see them carrying some of the guys out who are just in fucking terrible nick.

Reegs: And

Sidey: And it just ends with the kind of court scene where they're trying to court martial him for...

Reegs: Who, Harrison Ford? Yeah

Sidey: to me, once they've done the launch...

Dan: they, he, he, he pushed it and he was he was kind of, worried that, you know, obviously he was a major, he was very close to a major, You know, world disaster where everything could have blown up and and all kind of things gone wrong.

He pushed the ship down. He went back up. Part of it was, I think, in reaction to Liam Neeson's being too friendly with the crew. And he really wanted to push him. And at one point when they'd done all this, they put it all on. Spirit was high as, as you like. They were, you know, playing football on the ice.

They were having a great laugh. Took a big photo of everyone and everything was good. But he, Harrison Ford kept on kind of pushing him a little bit

Reegs: a little bit. Tell me a bit more about his motivation. He said he was married to

Sidey: They just, they just touched it up ever so slightly. They

Cris: they touched it a couple of times.

They said the niece of a leading...

Dan: But his father was also a, a big cheese and there was a couple of,

Reegs: because the thrust of the story is how this guy trying to accrue some kind of political gain right. Through doing this for mother Russia has pushed his crew too far. Is that, that's the story that's being framed at the end

Dan: maybe a little bit like that. I mean, they certainly hid it all politically because it wasn't a story they wanted to

Reegs: tell. Yeah.

Dan: But his father, I'm correct. He went to the Gulag. He was a kind of high up military guy as well. A Navy guy, submarine guy or whatever. And whether, you know, there was, there was some kind of history where he wanted to prove himself and the family name again.

But it turns out that he's heading in the same direction. It looks like he might be headed to the gulag just like his dad. That doesn't happen, but he never is in charge of a,

Sidey: he never gets another command and the whole crew are sworn to secrecy because they don't want this kind of embarrassing story about their shoddy fucking submarine getting out. So the very end is Liam Neeson sat in a, looks like a park, and he's clearly older because he's wearing glasses now. And Harrison Ford comes to see him and he's older because he's got a beard.

And it's this

Dan: dead of the radiation yet.

Sidey: like 20 odd years down the line. And he says, good to see you, old friend. And he's like, yeah, but why, you know, why can't we, we could have done this whenever? Because he's insisted, like, I have to come on this date. And he's like, well, what's the big deal? And he's like, no, it had to be today.

And they walked down the road and the whole crew are there. The surviving ones. And they fucking salute him. And I was just like. The whole film's been painting him as the villain. Don't . It's just really weird pivot, like two thirds of the way through the movie. Yeah, to understand bit bec because what, what we didn't say is when those people on top the first time, the after they think that the radiation fix has been done, they're all on board on, on top of the hull.

Yeah. And they're ordered to go below deck to dive. And some of them, one of the guys just jumps overboard. He just fucking kills himself. Just jumps in the water and another guy. Tries to get back out. And as he's trying to get back out, he pulls the electrical cable, causing electrical fire. Harrison Ford orders the thing suppression system, which I guess just drops a load of CO2 would have killed everyone in there.

He's just like, no, you have got to do that. And Liam Neeson is no. So, it's really like they really are going hard on him being, well, I suppose he's right but also he's

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: But then you got this bit at the crew will love him and you know, that wasn't how it was portrayed earlier on. But, I did enjoy it.

Dan: I did enjoy it. It

Reegs: was... It sounds quite, it

Dan: good. Especially, sorry

Cris: sorry to interrupt, but especially because it was filmed in such a tight environment, most of it,

Sidey: Yeah,

Cris: you know, and, and especially at the beginning when they say turn lever right, turn, and it kind of goes three times.

Reegs: You

Sidey: he, the

Cris: Neeson gives the order, the other guy gives the order to some other guy to do it. But it doesn't carry on through the movie like that. But for Tidequarters, it's a lot of action for a small

Sidey: I think the submarine naturally lends itself to that tense,

Reegs: I think we'll probably get into quite a lot of this in the top five, I would think, but, and

Sidey: restricted by Catherine Bigelow. Yeah. Deuce is sister. Yeah. She's got pre, oh no later. Does she do Heart Locker and did she do Heart Locker? She Heart Locker

Reegs: She's got pretty, oh yeah.

Sidey: So that's good. Budget for it was 100 mil. What do we think? We're in a loser.

Cris: Winner. I thought it was a winner for them.

Dan: would say with, with Ford and Liam Neeson, it's made some money. Wow.

Reegs: name alone is going to put a lot of people off.

Sidey: milli. Yeah, so that wasn't very good. 25 mil for 20 days work. That's nice, isn't it?

Cris: Wow.

Sidey: And then when the a lot of the survivors read the script they were appalled then Apparently it's a lot of embellishment in some of the drama.

Dan: Well they have to do that, otherwise it's, you know, sub optimal.

Sidey: That's right,

Cris: also, you know, Russian, so they had to make it on in Hollywood terms. They had to do something with it. They weren't, they weren't gonna do it as dark as the Russians would've done it, so I don't think.

Sidey: I've got some stats about what happened to Submarine after the filming, do you wanna

Dan: filming. Yeah.

Cris: said at the beginning it was a true story. Yeah,

Sidey: yeah. Yeah,

Reegs: it at the beginning. It was a true

Cris: okay, so it's a true story, but... It's a little bit of...

Sidey: a true story with probably a little bit of embellishment by the

Cris: Hollywood touches, okay.

Sidey: It was sold... Jason

Dan: wasn't really there. Harrison Ford was there.

Sidey: sold to the USS Saratoga... God, it must be just a massive piece of shit like this terrible thing that they made there. So, when was it? The

Reegs: sank while God, it must be just a massive piece of shit like this terrible thing that they made.

So, when was it? The 80s?

Sidey: No, I think it was earlier than that,

Cris: Yeah, it was probably 60s or

Reegs: Cause then we did, we did have the Kursk. I mean, that was, when, when was that? Maybe 15 years ago was that?

Dan: that? They don't have a good record, is what you're saying. Under the waves.

Cris: I done the races? Yeah, I

Reegs: Rather Was it? Oh, have I done a racist? No,

Cris: think the

Sidey: Yeah, I think the title doesn't help it but it didn't, I think it's better than the box office numbers suggest.

Reegs: It's

Dan: it was definitely watchable.

You may think you've already seen this but you've probably seen those other ones that are very

Sidey: There's lots of them.

Dan: talk about the hunt for Red October or um

Reegs: don't give, don't give the, don't

Dan: the Crimson Tide but we'll go for them in the top five in the

Sidey: On Friday.

Dan: on Friday. So, listen out for that one.

Sidey: So, I'd say this was a moderate recommend.

Dan: Yeah, I would say go for it.

Cris: Yeah, I would say it's a good recommend. Although, as always with me, Two hours could have been an hour and a half. If you ask

Sidey: There's a lot of tapping at dials and stuff that you could skip,

Cris: They could have, they could have caught a few

Reegs: I like that though. If you, if you're doing a submarine move, you want lots of people

Cris: And

Reegs: sweaty men

Sidey: Oh, there's lots of that.

Reegs: we

Cris: We need to,

Reegs: that sort

Cris: to remember how unbelievable the accents are coming from Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson

Sidey: Sometimes it just feels like he's given up. But I still liked it in spite of that.

Dan: Yeah.

Cris: yeah,

Dan: Check it out.