History Film / BlackSea

''Black Sea'' is a 2014 British-American-Russian {{disaster|Movie}} thriller film directed by Kevin Macdonald, written by Dennis Kelly, and starring Creator/JudeLaw, Creator/BenMendelsohn, and Scoot [=McNairy=].

''Black Sea'' is a 2014 disaster thriller film directed by Kevin Macdonald, written by Dennis Kelly, and starring Creator/JudeLaw, Creator/BenMendelsohn, and Scoot [=McNairy=].

Captain Robinson (Law) is an experienced veteran of under-sea salvage, having lost his wife and son to divorce thanks to his devotion to the time-consuming job... only to be laid off due to his job being made redundant. With nothing but a piddling severance check and a future of menial fast-food jobs, Robinson gets a tip from a similarly laid-off colleague about an opportunity to claim a vast fortune that lays forgotten in the eponymous Black Sea.

A massive sum of gold, meant to be a loan from the Russians to Nazi Germany to defuse a potential war between the two nations in the 1940s, was loaded into a U-boat which never arrived at its destination, coming to rest just off the coast of Georgia. The few who know about it are waiting out the results of the Russo-Georgian war before they attempt to salvage it, leaving Robinson an opportunity to sneak in and grab it first. Robinson secures a submarine and brings in a crew of British and Russian men to conduct a salvage operation.

Released in late 2014 in the UK and early 2015 in the USA, ''Black Sea'' was a small release, grossing only about 1.6 million dollars at the box office despite good reviews and reception.

* PsychoPartyMember: Fraser, who is mentioned from the get-go to be a "psychopath" and shortly after is said to have been coming in and out of jail for some time now; but he still is recruited for the recovery mission/heist at the bottom of the eponymous Russian ocean because [[BunnyEarsLawyer his capacity as a salvage diver makes him necessary ("he's half-fish")]]. The '''two times''' the crew's sub sinks and nearly kills everybody is because he loses his head and kills another member.

* Greed: Whether it's Fraser thinking that the British crewmen should get a much larger slice of the pie than the Russians, two crew members fighting over a thirty thousand pound lottery ticket, or Robinson willing to risk the life of everyone to get out with the gold, greed is everywhere in the film.

Captain Robinson (Law) is an experienced veteran of under-sea salvage, having lost his wife and son to divorce thanks to his devotion to the time-consuming job...only to be laid off due to his job being made redundant. With nothing but a piddling severance check and a future of menial fast-food jobs, Robinson gets a tip from a similarly laid-off colleague about an opportunity to claim a vast fortune that lays forgotten in the titular Black Sea.

A massive sum of gold, meant to be a loan from the Russians to Nazi Germany to defuse a potential war between the two nations in the 1940s, was loaded into a U-boat and never arrived at it's destination, coming to rest just off the coast of Georgia. The few who know about it are waiting out the results of the Russo-Georgian war before they attempt to salvage it, leaving Robinson an opportunity to sneak in and grab it first. Robinson secures a submarine and brings in a crew of British and Russian men to conduct a salvage operation.

Released in late 2014 in the UK and early 2015 in the USA, Black Sea was a small release, grossing only about 1.6 million dollars at the box office despite good reviews and reception.

* DownerEnding: The submarine sinks to the bottom of the black sea. Ten of the twelve crew members are dead, along with Daniels (though audiences might not mind that so much), and nearly all of the two hundred million dollars in gold will be scattered at a much deeper depth, with recovery nigh-impossible even if someone knows it's still down there. The only taste of bittersweet we get is the two survivors, Tobin and Morozov, getting the opportunity to escape with their lives and a few million in gold.
* FatalFamilyPhoto: Robinson keeps a photograph of his twelve-year old son, who he is estranged from after divorcing his wife, occasionally lamenting that he can't be there for his boy. Ends up being the final casualty, resigning himself to death on the sinking submarine, sending the photograph up to the surface in an emergency suit along with some gold.

* ForWantOfANail: In the backstory. Nazi Germany is running out of funds in 1941, and threatens to attack the Soviets unless they give the Third Reich a loan in the form of two tons of gold. The Soviets comply, but Germany attacks anyway after the submarine full of gold never arrives. A conflict spanning four years and resulting in twenty million deaths happened because a submarine sunk before reaching it's destination.

* NewMeat: The crew is made up entirely of experienced, expert seamen who have years of experience aboard submarines (outside of the uninvolved Daniels)...and Tobin, an eighteen-year old there only by being in the right place at the right time, having been the delivery boy for the news of Kurston's suicide and being present when Robinson desperately needed one more man. Though he initially is good only for being the butt of jokes and target of abuse, as well as making simple mistakes, he ends up being crucial to the mission by participating in the swim to the U-boat thanks to his SCUBA experience.

* PsychoPartyMember: Fraser, who is mentioned from the get-go to be a "psychopath" and shortly after is said to have been coming in and out of jail for some time now; but he still is recruited for the recovery mission/heist at the bottom of the titular Russian ocean because [[BunnyEarsLawyer his capacity as a salvage diver makes him necessary ("he's half-fish")]]. The '''two times''' the crew's sub sinks and nearly kills everybody is because he loses his head and kills another member.

* PsychPartyMember: Fraser, who is mentioned from the get-go to be a "psychopath" and shortly after is said to have been coming in and out of jail for some time now; but he still is recruited for the recovery mission/heist at the bottom of the titular Russian ocean because [[BunnyEarsLawyer his capacity as a salvage diver makes him necessary ("he's half-fish")]]. The '''two times''' the crew's sub sinks and nearly kills everybody is because he loses his head and kills another member.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Part of the problem that the submarine crew runs into is that half the crew is British and the other half is Russian (necessary as the sub they are salvaging was Russian), with only one of the Russians being able to speak English. Halfway through the movie, Morozov reveals he can speak English and simply wasn't interested in revealing it until he had to.

* ArtisticLicenseShip: Fraser, Tobin and Peters have no trouble getting inside the sunken U-Boat. In reality, getting inside the submarine from the outside is impossible without assistance from the inside.

* AxCrazy: Fraser is an incredible diver, but is known to be rather mentally unstable and prone to violence. Unsurprisingly, ends up being the spark that starts the entire mission on the road to failure, when he escalates a verbal argument into a physical one by stabbing Blackie in the heart. Blackie's dying body falls on some diesel, knocking it into the engine, causing a massive explosion that kills as least three crewmen and destroys the drive shaft, as well as causing the Russian half of the crew to stop co-operating with the Brits.

* NewMeat: The crew is made up entirely of experienced, expert seamen who have years of experience aboard submarines...and Tobin, an eighteen-year old there only by being in the right place at the right time, having been the delivery boy for the news of Kurston's suicide and being present when Robinson desperately needed one more man. Though he initially is good only for being the butt of jokes and target of abuse, as well as making simple mistakes, he ends up being crucial to the mission by participating in the swim to the U-boat thanks to his SCUBA experience.

* AxCrazy: Fraser is an incredible diver, but is known to be rather mentally unstable and prone to violence. Unsurprisingly, ends up being the spark that starts the entire mission on the road to failure, when he escalates a verbal argument into a physical one by stabbing Blackie in the heart. Blackie's dying body falls on some diesel, knocking it into the engine, causing a massive explosion that kills as least three crewmen and destroys the drive shaft.

* MarriedToTheJob: Captain Robinson was married long enough to have a son, before his wife finally got tired of never seeing him due to his demanding job doing underwater salvage for Agora. Which makes Agora casting him aside due to redundancy all the worse, as he now doesn't have anything else in his life to live for.

The crew, which includes the unstable but prodigiously talented diver Fraser (Mendelsohn), the representative of expedition backer Lewis, who very much wants nothing to do with being on the submarine Daniels (McNairy), and eighteen-year old, last moment replacement Tobin, immediately struggle to work together for an assortment of reasons, and the highly lucrative job quickly runs into almost every problem imaginable. Betrayal, paranoia, and greed infects virtually everyone, as the Black Sea threatens to bury the crew just as it did the gold they seek.

Released in late 2014 in the UK and early 2015 in the USA, Black Sea was a small release, grossing only about 1.6 million dollars at the box office despite good reviews and reception.

''Black Sea'' is a 2014 disaster thriller film directed by Kevin Macdonald, written by Dennis Kelly, and starring Creator/JudeLaw, Creator/BenMendelsohn, and Scoot McNairy.