Rewind Wednesday: Crimson Tide

Today's Rewind Wednesday is that of the 1995 submarine film directed by Tony Scott, starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, Crimson Tide.



The film takes place in 1995 (from several references made by the story) during a period of instability in Russia. Units of the Russian military loyal to an ultranationalist has taken control of a nuclear missile installation and is threatening nuclear war if either the American or the Russian government attempts to confront him.

Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington gave awesome performances, and their growing tension towards each other is enough to keep the excitement at a consistent high through the last half of the film. This is one of those films that does a perfect job of keeping your attention from beginning to end. This movie came out during a time when movies truly had all the right elements to make a great film. One thing that the movie does is to set the message at the very start of the film providing the perfect tone. And in a sort of twisted way the whole film is somewhat scary in the fact that it makes us wonder what if this situation did happen like this, and how could the military establish proper operating procedures for it. However, at the end of the film some hope is established.

The film is based on the premise that, at the time, U.S. submarine commanders were authorized to launch missiles on their own initiative if they could not communicate with the President of the United States after the order to arm the missiles was received. At about this time, the procedure was changed so that missiles could only be launched if a direct order from the Commander-in-Chief was received, even if communications had been broken off in the meantime, via the use of permissive action links. This matched Russian policy on submarine-based missile launches, which had always required direct orders to launch. Although the film does not claim to be based on a true story, events that transpire throughout the plot are strikingly similar to one of the most tense periods of the Cuban Missile Crisis, only the roles of the Americans and Soviets are reversed.

According to Guts and Glory..., the U.S. Navy objected to many of the elements in the script — particularly the aspect of mutiny on board a U.S. ship — and as such, the film was produced without the assistance of the U.S. Navy.

Little known fact: There was additional uncredited writing by Quentin Tarantino.

Here is some more footage between Washington and Hackman probably one of the most pivotal scenes of the movie: