Hauer gives a powerful performance as the courageous yet compassionate Soviet captain. An alarming postscript to the film notes that 51 nuclear warheads and 7 nuclear reactors have been lost at sea.
Taken in adapting the story to the screen. The tension is made more palpable by the real-life implications of the event-though it is unclear to what extent dramatic liberties have been Treading similar waters as THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990) and CRIMSON TIDE (1995), HOSTILE WATERS is a riveting, tightly scripted submarine adventure. Fearful that public announcement of the incident might impede the peace talks, the Though a hero to his men, Britanov is dismissed from the Soviet Navy. The rest of the crew is rescued, and the sub sinks without deploying its missiles. (Rob Campbell) who loses his life shutting down the reactors. The crisis is averted in part by the heroic efforts of a young crewman The risky strategy works, but moments later the sub's reactor alarm sounds, signaling imminent nuclear meltdown. Realizing that the Russian sub is in trouble yet suspicious of its every move, the Aurora skipper and his crew are poised to attack-an action that would start an all-outīritanov submerges his sub with its missile hatches open in order to take on enough water to extinguish the fire. Theīeleaguered Soviet sub surfaces in western waters-an unprecedented occurrence that stuns the Aurora skipper (Martin Sheen). The collision causes a gas explosion on the Soviet sub and a fire breaks out which could cause a nuclear meltdown large enough to decimate the entire eastern seaboard of the US. In the turbulence caused by the maneuver, the USS Aurora loses its sonar signal and the two vessels collide. Captain Britanov (Rutger Hauer) orders a 360-degree turn to evade the enemy Officials, this made-for-cable thriller aired on HBO in 1997 and was released to home video in 1998.Įight days before the Reagan-Gorbachev peace summit in Reykjavik is scheduled to take place, a Russian K-219 nuclear submarine furtively patrolling the western Atlantic detects the presence of an American sub in its wake. Based on extensive interviews with survivors, eyewitnesses, and military
A gripping dramatization of actual events, HOSTILE WATERS recreates the October 1986 collision of Russian and American submarines off the coast of Bermuda-an incident the US government maintains never occurred.