Fella_shibby Saw this recently on a DVD. Been on my radar for a long time. Knowin that its from the director of the original Insomnia n the actor from Headhunters, it aroused my curiosity. The film is about Norwegians and Americans cooperating in diving deeper than anyone previously has done to prepare for the installation of a gas pipeline. I found the movie very informative, providing knowledge about decompression sickness. Professional divers r used as guinea pigs while scientists secretly tested gas mixtures thought to counteract harmful deep sea pressures without the participant's knowledge. The film features breathless n claustrophobic underwater sequences. The bottom of the ocean as the dark side of the moon with the Norwegian flag. The scenes where the divers r going through rigorous training to prepare themselves are very tense. The claustrophobic environment of the pressure chamber n the divers' hallucinations created a sense of dread. The cinematography is gorgeous with clean blues, greens, and amber colors. The pacing was a bit letdown. Once the movie is away from the sea, it becomes a bit slow. The other issue was that the American characters, (Lang n Bentley) weren't given more footage n dialogues. The relationship between the lead character n his brother's family were a bit melodramatic at times. The angle of the greedy corporations n politics were full of clichés.

Paynebyname Saw this advertised on Sky Movies. The movie poster had an Abyss feel to it, which I guess did the job of getting my interest.The info then described this as a gripping 80's thriller. Believe me, unless your idea of gripping is people sitting around in decompression chambers, jittery flashbacks announced with annoying sound effects and far too much coverage given to the lead guy's fur lined jacket, this couldn't be further from the truth.I watched this for about 50 minutes before the boredom became more crushing than the pressure at the bottom of the Marianas trench.The Wave wasn't bad but after this and the appalling The Last King, I think I'm gonna have to give these Norwegians films a bit of a miss.

Larry Silverstein Inspired by true events, and set in the 1970's, this Norwegian drama seems to lack punch in the way it is presented and stretches credibility at times. However, it did hold my interest enough to want to know how it would all turn out.The plot revolves around a huge oil and gas discovery in the North Sea, off the Norwegian coast, which could bring enormous wealth to Norway if a way can be found to lay a pipeline along the sea floor, which would transport the oil and gas to land. It's unknown, however, whether divers working at those severe depths can survive. Thus, working jointly with America, teams of divers from both countries will undergo testing as to whether this engineering feat will be possible.One of the Norwegian divers is Petter, portrayed by Aksel Hennie, who, on one dive, will black out momentarily thus failing to shut off a valve and lead to the death of his brother, working alongside him. When Petter finally emerges from the required decompression, he is driven to do anything he can to find out what really happened on the dive.Petter will begin to realize that there are nefarious forces at work here and the conspiracy to cover-up the event reach far beyond what he could imagine. The projected profits are so great from this venture, that the actions of the conspirators will eventually lead to murder and mayhem.In summary, this film, directed by Erik Skjoldbjaerg, I thought might have been presented in a way where the tension was heightened more formidably, but I still found it fairly absorbing and interesting enough to maintain my interest to the end.

OJT Pioneer is a thriller inspired by true events in the 70'ies, when Norwegians and Americans was experimenting with deep sea diving, so that oil could go directly in pipelines from the deep sea oil wells on to land. This was landmark and record breaking work, and there was some tension between the Norwegians and the Americans back then. Humans were guinea pigs, in the sense that this was never done before. You could call it a moon landing at deep sea.This thriller has a very different style from what you might usually think a thriller should have. It bears resemblances with sci-fi films when landing on the moon. The feeling of the film is also close to films paranoia films like "The conversation" (of which thus doesn't even come close) or more known submarine films. Claustrophibic from time to time. The finishing scene is pure film art, but still maybe too obvious symbolic.I found the film exciting, and I liked especially the way the underwater situations were told. We were taken in on the blurry life of deep sea divers, either they were looking through water, murky waters or glass, and drug effects making distortion on sight. I also liked the setting. Very bleak seventies, down to every little details as to colors like we see them on photos today, and to authentic looking milk cartons. This is very qualified film making in many ways.However, there's some problems. The sound is a bad flashback from the seventies as well, and some of the ideas are not too well thought through. The limping (no more needed to be said) is ridiculous, and far off when it comes to the script. What the Hell happened here!?!Once again I think Aksel Hennie is electric in his role, as were the others. Very good instruction, and quality actors all the way through. It was like looking on a seventies spy thriller. A very international crew, with Wes Bentley, Stephen Land, Jonathan LaPaglia, Stephanie Sigman, Ane Dahl Torp, all making us remember the seventies with both heart and shrugs.Again screenwriter Nicolaj Frobenius proves his worth, as of course do director Erik Skjoldbjærg, which also has done great work with the films "Insomnia" (later remade by Christopher Nolan), "Prozac Nation", "An Enemy of the People" and the bank heist thriller "Nokas". But here there's some problems, and there are plot holes and easy solutions which irritates, especially on second watch. This tells that the film is more entertainment than really great filmmaking for film buffs.What a director! So different films, and such great feels to every single one! Still this falls through compared With Insomnia and Nokas with much easier solutions, and a more shallow film making than we're used to by Skjoldbjærg.