Another long haul, another movie on a very small screen. Phantom is set on a Russian submarine in 1968. It’s about fiendish Soviet plot (lead by David Duchovny) to blow up the world (and to use new radar-masking technology to lay the blame for the ensuing nuclear holocaust on the Chinese.) The only people who can stop this from going down (literally) are the sub’s drunken, epileptic, grief ridden Captain and a handful of loyal mariners who’ve spent too long under the sea.
Phantom is gloomy and slow, but it’s atmospheric enough and it plays out methodically. I was going to say “and there isn’t a happy ending”, except if it really is a true story, and we all survived it, then I’m very fucking happy, thank you very much. Ed Harris? He’s still got it.