Pressure

Pressure is a British submarine thriller from director Ron Scalpello, and a film that contains so many genre tropes it feels like the whole thing was made with the assistance of some kind of filmmaking stereotypes manual. Probably not even a very good manual, probably one that someone had in their backpack when it started raining really heavily and some of the pages got wet and stuck together and the corners all got a bit bent.

Matthew Goode plays the protagonist, Mitchell, a submarine operator who is charged with assembling a team to fix a piece of an underwater pipeline before an oncoming storm strikes. Despite his best efforts Goode never really convinces that he wants to be there, but Mitchell bravely overcomes this hindrance and goes about securing the help of Danny Huston’s Engel, a competent but world weary old dog of a character; and Joe Cole’s Jones, a first timer to this kind of excursion, who is predictably naïve and eager. The most clichéd role however is reserved for Alan McKenna’s Hurst as the troubled wildcard. Mitchell wouldn’t ideally turn to Hurst in this situation but circumstances are desperate. Hurst’s renegade nature is illustrated to the audience through the presence of large amounts of physical pornography in his room, a nice retro touch, and an empty bottle of whisky.

Inevitably the crew run into trouble as the storm strikes and contact is lost with their ship, oxygen supplies run low and survival becomes their only objective. Before the resolution to the drama, we are treated to some more agreeably familiar scenes. During their struggle to safely resurface, Engel is haunted by the memory of an accident that claimed the life of his partner, while Jones is motivated by a young love waiting back home, this information is conveyed to the audience with cut-away sequences with the kind of production values you might expect to find in those regional TV adverts for a local retail complex.

However, given the nature of the film, it delivers what anybody could reasonably expect, the cast give it a good go and genre fans will no doubt enjoy it, and there is something to be said for that.