A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Can anyone confirm if it's really so difficult to lower the rods in the reactor as shown in this film? I'd have thought that for a mechanism so important as this, there'd be a "release" button which dropped them. Or at least the pivot would be easily turned.Apart from that, as other posters have written, this is a fun Saturday night movie with some basis in fact. There are plenty worse. Why employ great actors like von Sydow but barely use him? There are clear influences from Das Boot and so on, but for the budget they have done a pretty good job. An experienced sailor commends it for its accurate portrayal of men under pressure, I note.

lots of flaws blah blah blah blah watch the movie so it was a cheap movie to make. back then HBO was making smart movies not BS main stream movies this one just like others made at that time were made to be watched and not picked apart so what just watch it and enjoy it.This was a different kind of role for Rutger Hauer he is very convincing in his role I liked it it will make you think listen to the sub-plot. lot of things happened in the cold war era. that most people will never know about so their are flaws the story is true and people died and people survived remember that and forget the flaws... there is always a bit of truth in every story

It is difficult to portray several days of events in two hours of TV, but "Hostile Waters" captured most of the emotions of the situation. It is not a documentary, nor even a docu-drama, but a dramatisation of events that actually occurred. Once again I was impressed with the quality of Rutger Hauer's craft in his portrayal of the Soviet captain who earned the respect of his crew by simply being "the Captain" in every respect (in fact, since the film did depart from the real events far enough, it might have better been titled "The Captain"). I was not wildly impressed by the character portrayed by Martin Sheen: either the director deliberately portrayed the pampered US nuke drivers as insecure martinets, or Sheen acted badly. The juxtaposition of the living conditions aboard the US submarine and the Soviet submarine was obviously done to make a point, but what that point is I do not know, and this is what will make this film a classic for those who want to interpret characterisations in the light of the director's perceived aims.

The movie portrays a tightly scripted drama when a disaster occurs on a Soviet nuclear sub. It places the viewer in the narrow confines of the sub and reminds us of the dangers constantly faced by the crew. Potential weaknesses of nuclear fail-safe systems also become apparent.