K-19: The Widowmaker functions as a Russian take on films like Run Silent, Run Deep and Crimson Tide, though it shares similarities with Michael Apted’s Gorky Park – which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Like Gorky Park, featuring Will Hurt and Brian Dennehy, K-19 centers around the performances of Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, echoing roles previously played by Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster/Gene Hackman, and Denzel Washington. Similar to Gorky Park, there’s barely any actual Russian dialogue; the fact that everyone speaks the same language throughout, even when it seems inappropriate, lets you put aside your doubts and imagine they're communicating in Russian. There's a third noteworthy element as well: the submarine itself emerges (and submerges) almost like a character. The issue is that it doesn’t seem to do its own stunts. When the boat is still docked, it feels believable and real; but once it goes underwater, that feeling disappears. Like Greyhound with Tom Hanks, K-19 works best when the action remains confined within the vessel – and given how many drills there are, this one manages to create a lot of tension and suspense. The ‘exterior’ shots, however, make you miss the tight spaces inside the sub. The most jarring scene involves Ford ordering a risky maneuver (and that's saying something, considering Neeson is constantly advising him to stay at a “safe depth”), which ends with the K-19 breaking through Arctic ice. Surprisingly, this reminded me of The Silence of the Lambs; specifically, the crosscutting sequence. In that film, parallel editing suggested two separate events were connected; in K-19, it’s the opposite: two related events – the submarine bursting through the ice and the crew desperately clinging on – feel disconnected because while the people seem like genuine individuals, the ice and the sub have a cheap, cartoonish quality. They simply aren't convincing. Despite its flaws, this is still a worthwhile attempt by director Kathryn Bigelow to tackle a genre often dominated by male filmmakers—and even when she’s not at her best, she usually surpasses many of them.

Source on TMDB