I'm no historian. I've never been to Russia or seen the crew of a 1968 Russian Navy sub. But I remember the 80s and I'd say within the first 10 minutes of this film you had a content veracity problem. An early scene shows a hasty church wedding. A naval officer who knew about a religious wedding and didn't report it might subsequently find himself in conversations with KGB at minimum, I'd have thought. Add that to a very casual communication style on the sub and several naval crew being unshaven? Hard for me to believe. Despite all of that though, I loved the acting. A choice was made to dispense with any Russian accents, which may hurt the story cred, but not the acting itself. Ed Harris has a challenge playing a captain with a past who has been demoted to his old sub, a diesel - not a nuke for a special assignment. He manages an admirable job of maintaining a haunted, nothing-left-to-lose demeanor in his role opposite David Duchovny, who should have been in shorter hair for this role. Duchovny plays cool emotion well, but missed some opportunities for more dimension to the ruthless edge his GRU character requires. William Fichtner's loyal and pained performance is my favorite of them all, however.
Review of Phantom
