It should have been a routine, but highly profitable salvage job. Thanks to Russian military adventurism in Georgia and Crimea, Ukraine, the whole rights and permissions thing is now considerably trickier. As a result, a disgruntled submarine captain will lead an off-the-books mission in Kevin Macdonald’s “Black Sea.”
Capt. Robinson has just been down-sized (or as the city of Detroit says, “right-sized”) by his buttoned-down corporate marine salvage firm. Finding little work for a disgruntled submarine skipper, Robinson is up for a caper and one of his former colleagues has one.
It turns out, while the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was still observed by both sides, Stalin agreed to loan Hitler millions in gold (as one socialist to another). However, the German U-boat carrying it home was sunk and Germany invaded Russia shortly thereafter. For decades, it lay forgotten at the bottom of the Black Sea. Eventually, the company struck a deal with the Georgian government to salvage it, but the operation was put on hold when the Russians starting paddling around like they owned the place.
