Black Sea – reviews of 'gripping' submarine thriller

What you need to know

British adventure thriller Black Sea opens in UK cinemas today. Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) directs the film written by Dennis Kelly (Utopia) and starring Jude Law.

Law plays a retrenched submarine captain who puts together a motley crew of misfits to look for lost Nazi gold rumoured to be in the depths of the Black Sea. As rivalries and tensions mount in the confined space of the submarine, the treasure hunt turns into a fight for survival.

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What the critics like

Black Sea is "a superbly shot men-on-a-mission thriller with chest-tightening tension and a striking contemporary resonance", says Nev Pierce in Empire. It recalls such classic mission movies as The Wages Of Fear or the desperate heists of Rififi and Heat, but also has the sense of dread, danger and being stranded of Alien.

The story's the real star in this undersea Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which "blends old-fashioned storytelling values and zeitgeisty relevance", says Trevor Johnston in Time Out. But Jude Law brings unexpected gravitas to this engrossing modern tale as the embittered Scots captain whose desire to wreak revenge on his heartless bosses may yet cloud his judgement.

"Tough, tense and genuinely gripping" this claustrophobic submarine thriller has a Cold War sensibility, with mounting hysteria and paranoia the driving force for the story, says Mark Adams in Screen International. Law, with an impressive Aberdeen accent, holds the film together with his intelligence, intensity, and innate charisma.

What they don't like

This submarine thriller "delivers on tension but doesn't get too deep", says Stella Papamichael on Digital Spy. Frustratingly, Macdonald never gets a full grasp on all the elements, though he often seems in touching distance of a great film.