What better way to go searching for a U-Boat that sunk in the Black Sea with millions in Nazi gold than to acquire another U-Boat to go looking for it.

That’s going to end well.

Black Sea is a tense submarine thriller that is mired only by a few questionable characters and one or two clunky twists.

A haggard Jude Law delivers a strong performance as Captain Robinson, but Black Sea thrives thanks to the direction and set-up by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, State of Play). To call the movie claustrophobic would not only be cliche but misleading, as the movie is less about the stresses of being confined to a tiny, narrow, dark dildo with no way to escape but rather the stresses incurred by Robinson’s horrible decision to recruit a bunch of British misfits and criminals--and another bunch of Russian hotheads--as his crew. Tensions rise between the two groups incredibly fast, and thanks to the that-escalated-way-too-quickly character played by Ben Mendelsohn, explode both literally and figuratively.

The character dynamics are a little preposterous at times, a few of the men so unable to even look a day in advance at what is ultimately in their best interests, but Macdonald’s slick, fast-paced direction allows you to gloss over those problems. The thought that the submarine (spoiler) could be fixed thanks to a critical engine piece that has been lying at the bottom of a sea for 60 years is also pretty silly, but it doesn’t matter--Macdonald just cranks the suspense and stakes up another notch or two.

While the screenplay by Dennis Kelly almost always works, it does falter a little toward the end; a revelation offered by one character is sort of silly, and a last minute feel-good moment defies physics. But both serves as blips in an otherwise solid production.

Black Sea isn’t the best submarine movie you’ll ever see, but that’s because it’s not trying to be; the filmmakers set out to make an exciting thriller, and that’s what the movie is. I should end with some kind of nautical pun, but that would just be too sublime.

Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.