K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) review

In the good ol' Cold War days, the Soviet military brass place Alexei Vostrikov (Harrison Ford) as the new captain of their nuclear submarine (K-19) and demote its former commander Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson) - whom the men on board truly respected - but on their way to the eastern seaboard of the United States, the reactor malfunctions, begins overheating and there's a serious concern the boat could explode and trigger WWIII.  For Bigelow, it's another opportunity for a woman to examine the chaotic world of ruthless males - there is only one female in the entire thing, and she mainly appears in a photograph - and her and her production team deftly navigate the cramped quarters of the ship so the scenes where the crew must take turns risking their health to fix the problem are expertly shot (Jeff Cronenweth is the DP).  The screenplay, however, is quite flaky: for a significant portion of the movie, the sailors come across as klutzes, falling into each other and having no sense of coordination, and then there's a perplexing change-of-tone for its two lead characters that doesn't feel natural.  Most people are probably better off not thinking about how many times Earth has almost been brought to extinction because of mishaps like this....