Ever wondered why the rigorous training that the soldiers are made to undergo before being commissioned , stresses so much on what we know in civilian parlance as discipline and honour.
It is because when a person is equipped with a gun or any modern weaponry it can never be absolutely ensured that he doesn’t fire it at his will.Hence in the armed forces exists the "chain of command" which consists of all the superiors and which a soldier has to adhere to, come what may, even to his own peril.
War(which they say is an extension of politics) in any which form is dirty business and nobody knows it better than the soldier who has breathed the blood soaked air and experienced the destruction, first hand.
But then, he is told that all this is honourable.What if he thinks otherwise?What if the pilot who dropped the fat boy on Nagasaki and wreaked unimaginable havoc had thought otherwise and abandoned the idea?But the soldiers are never supposed to think, are they?They simply carry orders and let the rest of the world decide how to interpret that act in history.
In one scene in Crimson Tide(More than anything else it was the name that drew me to the movie, what’s there in a name Shakespeare asked, well, I say a lot.) Lt .Commander Ron Hunter(played by Denzel Washington) during a dinner table conversation speaks his mind when he says "In my humble opinion, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself.
He finds very few takers for his theory.After all that dinner is taking place aboard the nuclear powered submarine USS Alabama and Hunter has some real shrewd military brains for company including Capt.Frank Ramsey(played by Gene Hackman).They are on a mission to avert any possible strike on the US by a rogue Russian organization(post cold war era).
Everything is going smooth until the Alabama is attacked by the same rogue submarine sending the crew and the leadership aboard into a tizzy of activity.Although they avert the attack the real problem arises when they receive a emergency action message(EAM) from their headquarters which due to the communication issues (as they are hundreds of feet under the sea) is received only partially leaving the seniors aboard to make their interpretation and prepare for future course of action.
This gives rise to a vehement clash of ideas between the trigger happy , instinctive Ramsey(captain of the ship and the foremost authority) and the "strictly go by the rule book" executive officer(XO) Hunter.What follows is a mutiny and then a counter mutiny in the face of absolute uncertainty.They finally manage to save the day but not before their true characters come to the fore.
Washington and Hackman deliver powerhouse performances carrying the whole movie wonderfully well on their shoulders.They seem to bring out the best in each other and their duels provide a splendid backdrop for the age old debate of Ruthless vs Pragmatic military thinking.As you will realize after watching the movie there are no clear winners here as both had national security as top priority albeit they wanted to go about it in totally separate ways.
Tony Scott’s direction is well above par where he portrays the psyche of a soldier superbly and provides a genuine sneak peek into the what goes on inside a war time nuclear submarine and sustains the tension and the drama throughout providing edge of the seat fare.Hans Zimmer’s music is as usual explosive.The screenplay by Michael Schiffer is another memorable highlight of the movie.If you enjoyed watching "Black Hawk Down" and "A few Good Men", this movie certainly qualifies as a must watch for you.