Kursk

Kursk (UK: Kursk: The Last Mission, US: The Command) is a 2018 disaster drama-thriller film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, based on Robert Moore's book A Time to Die, about the true story of the 2000 Kursk submarine disaster. It stars Matthias Schoenaerts, Léa Seydoux, Peter Simonischek, August Diehl, Max von Sydow, and Colin Firth. It was the last film featuring von Sydow to be released before his death in March 2020. Plot The Russian Navy's Northern Fleet begins an exercise in the Barents Sea. The fleet deployed includes Kursk, an Oscar-class submarine. At sea, weapons officer Pavel Sonin reports that the interior temperature of a HTP torpedo is increasing rapidly, indicating a potential hydrogen peroxide leak. The captain however ignores Pavel's concerns and moments later the torpedo prematurely explodes, killing the weapons room crew. A secondary explosion of the remaining torpedoes rips a hole through the submarine's forward hull, sending the ship to the sea bed. The surviving crew members rally at the aft-most compartment, now rapidly taking on water. The crew desperately await rescue, while on dry land the sailors’ wives begin to hear rumours regarding the submarine. Royal Navy Commodore David Russell detects the seismic events and deduces that Kursk has had an accident. Admiral Grudzinsky, commander of the Northern Fleet, initially believes there are no survivors, but immediately tapping is heard through the hull of the submarine and the Russians deploy a rescue submersible. The old and poorly maintained craft cannot form a seal on the Kursks hull and is forced to return to the surface and wait for a 12-hour battery recharge. Meanwhile the survivors begin to run low on air, requiring two crew members to swim into a flooded compartment to retrieve oxygen cartridges. Another rescue attempt is made, but the submersible again cannot form a seal on the hull. On land the sailors' families, wives and friends grow resentful of the repeated stone-walling by the Russian Admiralty, who also reject foreign offers of help for fear of exposing Russian naval secrets. Despite this, Admiral Grudzinsky accepts an earlier offer from Russell, but Grudzinsky is relieved of command shortly afterwards. The Russian Navy orders Russell, along with British and Norwegian divers, not to approach the Kursk.