Black sea: how to work with plot.

Spoiler warning: you can pretty much read between the lines where this movie is heading, so be wary.

Black sea is about a group of laid-off submarine sailors who go off to hunt a sunken Nazi-treasure. This has to be completely covert because -naturally- they don't want to share with the authorities.

When you get right down to it there are two kinds of plots in the world of movies. Character driven plots and action driven plots. This -I assume- is common knowledge. A character driven plot lets events happen through the choices of the characters (Kevin Spacey's midlife-crisis gets most of the balls rolling in American Beauty). An action driven plot simply throws events at the characters they don't have any control over (An alien invasion messes up Tom Cruise's day in War of the worlds).

Now most movies try to mix this up. Aliens invade and the choices the characters make make things better or worse. And this is where problems arise. Because if the choices of the characters are unbelievable (or just plain dumb/convenient for the writer) the movie becomes unbalanced.

Take for example the latest season of The Walking Dead (not a show known for its intelligence -but very addictive). The main characters find a quarry filled with thousands of zombies. There's a truck blocking the path out for the zombies. But this barrier isn't going to last. Now the choice the main character Rick makes is to open the pathway and silently lead the zombies away from the quarry in some kind of exodus (And of course this fails.). Logic would dictate a better barrier or maybe some kind of slide/ditch to keep those zombies contained. Like a giant wasp trap. So this (in my humble opinion) not very smart choice causes all the later events and undermines the flow of the show.

Anyway this is the point is wish to make about the movie Black sea. The characters and their choices are all a bit too convenient in messing things up to help the movie reach its dramatic conclusion.

The big gripe I have with this movie is that the characters would all have gotten rich quite easily if they simply worked together. But, here they are, all alpha males, on a leaky submarine and they instantly start fighting amongst each other. Not very professional. But most of all actually rather suicidal. I cannot believe that experienced sailors would go at each other’s throats that easily (even before they find the treasure).

The movie tries to brush it off with: "That guy is a psychopath." (a true quote from the movie when they are hiring people for the mission). But even if you accept the fact that one guy is mentally unstable the willingness of these characters to kill each other so soon is far too easy.

I would have understood if they went after each other after they found the treasure midway through. Greed is a great motivator for villainy. But strangely enough the movie does the exact opposite. The minute the treasure is on board the villains (if you kill somebody you become a villain in my book) fight for survival. Because they honestly believe that their captain bases his choices on greed.*

So in short Black sea is disappointing because the characters make stupid decisions and the hero -and thus the movie- suffers from that. It's not a sense of: 'oh darn...I really wished they would have made it' but rather a sense of: 'really? You think that is the wisest thing to do? Oh alright suit yourself an go at it.' -It might have helped if I liked all the characters. But unfortunately I didn't and the nicest guys die first.

*Now, the captain part (and his greedy motivations) is underwritten. You don't really feel that he is making any wrong choices. And you aren't inclined to listen to two people who just murdered people.