Phantom

RogerEbert

Ed Harris in "Phantom" is like Steve Carlton with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1972 — delivering a wall-to-wall, amazing performance that's lost in a sea of dreadfulness.

That season, Carlton won 27 games for a Phillies team that finished 59-97. Harris delivers a nomination-worthy performance in a movie with a throwaway title, an abundance of closeups that provoke unintentional laughs, a few bizarre supernatural touches and one of the loopier endings in recent memory.

If they gave a Cy Young Award for acting, Harris would be a contender. That he kidnaps our attention and holds it throughout "Phantom" while playing a Soviet submarine captain who speaks English without a trace of an accent makes his work all the more impressive.

Inspired by true events, as they say, but filled with speculative fiction, "Phantom" takes place almost entirely aboard a nearly obsolete Soviet submarine in 1968. The sub will be stripped of some key elements and then sold to the Chinese — but first there's one last mission.

Harris plays Demi, a craggy-faced, world-weary Soviet sub commander who battles epilepsy, drinks too much and is plagued by flashbacks that seem right out of a horror movie. Nearing the end of his career, Demi has never escaped the shadow of his father, a legend in Soviet military lore. (How's that for an unoriginal twist?) But even though Demi's wearing a Soviet uniform, in charge of a Soviet ship and living in, well, the Soviet Union, I spent the first few minutes of the film wondering if Demi was actually an American, given that he was speaking perfect English without a trace of an accent.

Turns out writer-director Todd Robinson has made the bold and somewhat goofy choice to have all his actors talk in their normal voices, as if they're doing a table read and not in full costume with the cameras rolling. Whether it's William Fichtner as Demi's fiercely loyal right-hand man, Alex, or David Duchovny as Bruni, a "technician" who clearly has ulterior motives joining Demi's crew at the last moment, everybody just speaks "American."

Granted, it's always a bit jarring when a film about, say, German soldiers in World War II has all the actors speaking English with German accents — but it's even more unsettling when a bunch of "Soviet" sailors are talking about "the Americans," and yet they all sound like they're from Jersey or Chicago or Cali.

Robinson does a fine job of maneuvering the cast and his camera through the sub's narrow, labyrinthine corridors, but the murky, claustrophobic atmosphere turns thuddingly dull because we almost never leave the submarine, and the submarine almost never surfaces. "Phantom" paints itself into a tiny corner where there's little choice but to rely on tight shots of sweaty actors communicating in what we presume to be authentic sub-speak as Demi and his loyal crew square off against Bruni and his nefarious plans for the vessel.

There's a mutiny, as there so often is with movies of this sort, and we finally learn what Bruni and his KGB thugs have in store for the old sub. Suffice to say they've got a plan that could trigger World War III — or just get everybody aboard killed for no good reason. We get the obligatory few scenes in which a character goes on and on about another character's back story, for no other reason than to fill in the audience. Eventually we learn the true nature of those horrific flashbacks plaguing Demi.

With his smirk and his cool line readings, Duchovny is wildly miscast as a Cold War Soviet spy. Fichtner does fine work as a No. 2 whose loyalty to his commander and his country go hand in hand. Everybody else tries hard with material that asks us to not only suspend disbelief but also to expel it for the duration of the film. The ending is a howler, provoking uneasy chuckles when we're supposed to be feeling chills and maybe a tear or two. Whatever really happened with that sub in 1968, we can be reasonably sure this wasn't it.

But then there's Harris, holding our attention, whether he's springing into action or motionless, simply reflecting on a hard life nearing its end, with more failures than triumphs, more regrets than warm memories. It is a stellar performance from an actor who always comes to play, even when the story almost guarantees a lost cause.

Rotten Tomatoes

MOVIE INFO

Academy Award (R) nominee Ed Harris (A Beautiful Mind, The Abyss), David Duchovny ("The X-Files," "Californication") and William Fichtner (The Dark Knight, Black Hawk Down) star in PHANTOM, a Cold War-era suspense thriller about a Soviet submarine captain, haunted by his past, who is forced to lead a covert mission that could spark a global nuclear war. Written and directed by Todd Robinson (Lonely Hearts, White Squall) and inspired by true events, PHANTOM is a riveting deep-sea adventure about extraordinary men facing impossible choices.(c) Official Site

ReelView

With a title like Phantom, one might easily assume that this movie is a ghost story. In actuality, however, it's a submarine thriller loosely based on actual events from 1968. The tale told by Phantom falls into the realm of "historical fiction." Although Todd Robinson's screenplay excerpts facts from the established record of the sinking of the Soviet sub K-129, the interpretation of why the boat sank is based in large part on controversial theories advanced by Dr. John P. Craven and Kenneth Sewell. Much of what's contained in Phantom is at best speculative and at worst completely made-up. But, regardless of the accuracy, it makes for compelling viewing. Phantom is one of the best films of a lousy early 2013 release roster.

It's interesting to note that the submarine genre is one of the most reliable when it comes to quality motion pictures. There have been some great ones (Das Boot and Run Silent, Run Deep come to mind) and a host of good ones, but the list of mediocre-to-bad examples is slim. Phantom, while neither high profile nor accompanied by a pedigree, is a solid entry. The primary strengths of the submarine movie - the powerful sense of claustrophobia and the tension resulting from life-and-death battles that occur between half-blind opponents - are effectively handled in Phantom.

The movie is set in 1968 and most of it plays out within the confines of a Soviet diesel submarine on its last mission. It's an antiquated boat, made obsolete by the new fleet of nuclear powered vessels. The captain, Demi (Ed Harris), is looking at the end of his undistinguished career. He has spent a lifetime trying to live up to the reputation of his father, one of the engineers of Soviet submarine warfare, with little success. His XO, Alex (William Fichtner), is in line for a command of his own once this mission is completed. The third key man on board is Party Officer Pavlov (Johnathon Schaech), the individual responsible for making sure that socialist ideals and attitudes are properly adhered to by all hands. On this particular voyage, KGB officer Bruni (David Duchovny) is on board to test a prototype top secret device. He is accompanied by several armed and fanatical associates and, when push comes to shove, he places himself at the top of the command structure, above Demi.

As the submarine sinks below the surface, various storylines begin to play out. The first involves the tension between Bruni and Demi that eventually erupts into an open conflict. Then there's the cat-and-mouse game of underwater battles as the sub has a series of encounters. Finally, there's Bruni's end-game: start a nuclear war between the United States and China where the USSR would be the ultimate winner. All of this is resolved satisfactorily in a little over 90 minutes.

The all-male cast is comprised primarily of character actors. Ed Harris plays to his strengths - the solid, reliable lead whose character flaws don't diminish the viewer's ability to relate to him. William Fichtner, who can shift back and forth between wearing black hats and white hats, is credible as the film's least flawed individual. David Duchovny quickly erases associations with Fox Mulder and Hank Moody by showing that he's more than capable of playing a detestable character if required. Although the film's verisimilitude is hurt a little by the decision to use English dialogue, at least no attempt is made to incorporate fake Russian accents. That might have turned a serious production into one that was unintentionally campy.

The screenplay credited to writer/director Todd Robinson isn't without its flaws. It's confusing in the early scenes as we are exposed to a massive exposition dump setting up the situation. Some of the sub action occurs a little too quickly, robbing tension that would accompany a slower build-up. When it comes to white-knuckle suspense and edge-of-the-seat heart palpitations, Phantom doesn't come close to Das Boot. But, although its factual basis may be deeply flawed, the movie is well constructed and the workmanlike execution held my attention.

Full Movie on Xmovie8