I just watched this last night and really enjoyed it. Its got a lot of fine actors in it actually. The acting was good and the special effects were good.(THFRO still beats it though) The story was very intriguing too. I suppose it was one of those "what if" scripts written to explore what may have happened to a late 1960s Soviet sub that sank during the Cold War. I'm not quite sure which sub the movie is based off but it made for an interesting watch. I'm sure the story is quite Hollywooded but its not stupid either. Like I said I found it very interesting. The real events this is based off probably are totally different but its not likely we'll ever be told the absolute truth of these things. If its based off the sub the CIA recovered then the ending is totally artistic license however, I liked what they handled it though. Once again its only based off events so there's probably a lot of speculation and creation at play in the movie's story. The ending though I felt was very poignant and I feel showed some respect and dignity to sub sailors just in general who have lost their lives to the deep.

Okay that being said, the only real weird thing for me was that no actor used or attempted a Russian accent. Everybody spoke as they do which I suppose if you're going to do that, then everyone needs to do so to be consistent. It would be too annoying if only a couple guys here and there did it. I suppose had this been a huge production and had they a lot more time then maybe they could have had the actors voice trained but even still, many of the actors(and there's a bunch of great one's in this movie) have decidedly American accents, not varying or foreign in any way. So it may be best they did it this way though it takes awhile to get used to. Maybe they should have done what THFRO did in the beginning having people speak Russian at first with subtitles and then gradually bleed back into their own language and speaking voice. Overall I liked it and I can suspend belief on the accents if it ends up being a decent movie which for me it did so it wasn't too bad after awhile just a little jarring at times. Ed Harris though...man he's a good actor. Love him.

Sounds worthwhile, and I am always up for a sub movie. Thanks for the tip.

It was based off the soviet submarine K-129 that sank under unknown causes.

"Phantom" was an independent film with a budget of less than 10 million dollars. The production values and special effects would be subpar compared to a major Hollywood production like HFRO.

Thanks for the heads up, looks good. On my Netflix list now.

Same here, and I followed that K-129 story down a rabbit hole, fascinating stuff!!

The documentary "Azorian: The Raising Of The K-129" is also fascinating.

Glomar Explorer, mining for manganese nodules in secret, paid for by Howard Hughes. Nothing fishy about that

The story about Operation Azorian is really something. Shame the claw holding the sub broke. The story is also covered in Blind Man's Bluff, an excellent book on US Cold War submarine ops.

So please educate me here SimHQ crowd. What is the practical application of manganese nodules?

Same just happened to me. I was going to say the Azorian project needs a movie, but reading further it seems I'm too late with that idea

or DID it!?!?

Nice fake pics I have seen if they didn't.

Before the discovery of vast quantities of nickel, manganese was used for stainless steel.