COMRADE FORD PILOTS DRIPPY SHIP:

COMRADE FORD PILOTS DRIPPY SHIP: Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News says K-19: The Widowmaker has just enough pizzazz and novelty to keep it afloat, and gives it two and half stars:

The subtext of the movie is about being a good parent, a clash between the “good” father (Neeson) and the relentless one (Ford). The faceoffs provide the lead actors with plenty of meat. But because Ford is an executive producer, his bad guy isn’t all that bad, ultimately, and he sees to it that he gets the most traffic-stopping speeches, even if his accent is all over the map and the script has him uttering such clunkers as “Men, you have done your duty for the Motherland!”

In the late ’80s, I remember reading a GQ profile of Ford, where the author said that Ford knows his limitations as an actor, and accents were one of them. Too bad Ford seems to have forgotten that self-limitation: judging by the few minutes of trailers and commercials I’ve seen for K-19, Ford’s Russian accent sounds painfully bad, right up there with Mr. Chekov from Star Trek and Boris from Rocky and Bullwinkle.