Ramsey and Hunter’s conflicting philosophies are put to the ultimate test under the direst possible circumstances. They’re already on high alert thanks to a Russian separatist group that has taken control of a nuclear missile battery. The Alabama is ordered to fire its nukes to stop the seemingly imminent attack. But this already-dire situation is further complicated by a second, partial message that is truncated when the sub’s communication lines are severed, a message that may—or may not—rescind the order to fire. When Ramsey refuses to wait to launch the Alabama’s payload, Hunter seizes control of the ship by reciting Navy code like Shakespearean verse. It’s the first of many instances in which the movie asks the audience to ponder the convoluted nexus of legality, morality, and ethics.
Over the course of their duel, each man’s most loyal friend winds up turning against him. And in the case of both Ramsey’s sidekick Cob (George Dzundza) and Hunter’s old shipmate Weps (Viggo Mortenson), their dissent is a begrudging choice that hinges on their own interpretation of the proper procedure. The question is never whether to follow the law, but rather what following the law means—and who gets to interpret it.
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Scott and his crew are clearly aware of all the submarine-movie tropes. They are, so to speak, swimming in them. Early in the movie, Mortenson’s Weps passes the time by challenging another sailor, played by James Gandolfini, to a trivia game about the stars of classic submarine flicks. Quentin Tarantino did an uncredited rewrite on the script, and this is among the handful of scenes that obviously bears his fingerprints. It’s a classically Tarantino-esque nod to show that everyone involved is well aware of the mechanics of this sub-genre, including us, the audience—plus bonus points for anyone who knew Curd Jurgens played the villain in The Enemy Below.
And the film deploys many of these tropes: the tense silence of the crew as enemy ships pass whisper-close to one another, the bubbling wakes of torpedos slicing through the water, the concussion-rattle of nearby explosions, and the subsequent struggle to seal off flooding hulls. Despite these trappings, though, Crimson Tide less resembles underwater thrillers like Run Silent, Run Deep or procedure-steeped tragedies like Das Boot than it does the more philosophical mutiny dramas, like the many iterations of the tale of the HMS Bounty or, in particular, The Caine Mutiny, which is perhaps Crimson Tide’s most apropos counterpart.