The 2000 K-141 Kursk submarine disaster is followed by governmental negligence. As the sailors fight for survival, their families desperately battle political obstacles and impossible odds to save them.
Kursk is inspired by the unforgettable true story of the K-141 Kursk, a Russian flagship nuclear-powered submarine that sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea in August 2000. As 23 sailors fought for survival aboard the disabled sub, their families desperately battled bureaucratic obstacles and impossible odds to find answers and save them.
Barents Sea, August 12th, 2000. During a Russian naval exercise, and after suffering a serious accident, the K-141 Kursk submarine sinks with 118 crew members on board. While the few sailors who are still alive barely manage to survive, their families push for accurate information and a British officer (Colin Firth) struggles to obtain from the Russian government a permit to attempt a rescue before it is late.
August 2000: Mikhail Averin is a respected man in the Russian Northern Fleet. At the helm of the "K-141 Kursk", the most modern Russian nuclear submarine equipped with cruise missiles, he successfully steers the pride of an entire nation through the seas. During training on the high seas, a fatal chain of accidents occurs, resulting in explosions that damage the bow of the ship. The steering and instruments fail, causing the Kursk to sink uncontrollably into the depths. Many of the sailors are already dead; only a few survivors remain in the stern of the submarine, trapped at the bottom of the Barents Sea. With no light and no chance of communicating, the men are conserving their food and oxygen reserves as best they can, waiting exhausted, soaked and frightened for outside help. However, the Russian navy is not capable of such a rescue, as the only ailing salvage ship is unable to reach the survivors. Although the trapped people can be heard knocking desperately, they cannot be helped. British Commodore David Russell offers his Russian friend Admiral Gruzinsky NATO's help. However, Gruzinsky is forced by his superiors to turn down the offer. Meanwhile, Averin's wife Tanya and other families of the sailors are left completely in the dark about the situation of their loved ones. The relatives of those trapped try desperately to get through to the Russian navy command. But they are stubborn.
Murmansk, August 2000. Russian Naval Captain-Lieutenant Mikhail Averin (Matthias Schoenaerts) prepares for the Northern Fleet's exercise involving his posting, the Oscar II-class submarine Kursk. Budget cuts prevent the sailors from receiving their earned pay, forcing Averin and his friends Anton (August Diehl) and Oleg (Magnus Millang) to trade their submariners' watches for supplies for the wedding of their crew-mate Pavel (Matthias Schweighöfer). After the wedding the sailors say their goodbyes to their families as the boat goes out to sea.Admiral Grudzinsky (Peter Simonischek) commands the Northern fleet and laments the loss of ships due to budgetary cuts. He is leading an naval exercise involving 57 surface ships and 3 submarines. The Kursk is part of the exercise group with Grudzinsky. Kursk is an Oscar class nuclear sub, silent and undetectable.
En route to the exercise area, Pavel, the weapons officer, notes that the temperature of the experimental HTP torpedo is beginning to increase rapidly (it was 130 degrees at departure, but rose to 135 degrees and then to 148 degrees within just a few hours). The HTP torpedoes are considered to be cheap and dangerous, and Pavel requests permission to fire it early due to the risk of a kerosene leak. The purpose of Kursk in the exercise is to fire the experimental torpedo and return to base undetected. Noting the submarine's proximity to the allowed zone (they are just 7 mins away) and the still acceptable temperature of the torpedo, the captain orders Pavel and his men to wait. As the temperature rises further the torpedo explodes, devastating the boat and killing the weapons room crew.
Averin and his men, located aft, immediately begin to take precautions and determine the situation. The rapidly increasing temperature of the weapons room explodes the remaining ordnance, killing the bridge crew and sending the ship to the bottom. The survivors rapidly move aft securing compartments as they go. Averin contacts Anton in the reactor room, who says goodbye as the compartment floods, having secured the reactor and prevented a nuclear disaster.
The remaining men rally in the aft-most compartment of the boat, which is rapidly taking on water. With the pump not powerful enough to stop water entering the compartment, the crew desperately await rescue. Meanwhile, the sailors' wives, including Averin's wife Tanya (Léa Seydoux) and Pavel's newlywed Daria (Katrine Greis-Rosenthal), have heard rumors making their way from the Fleet regarding Kursk. While naval officers give them no answer, they note that the sole rescue ship has not yet left port.
Commodore David Russell (Colin Firth) of the British Royal Navy has detected the seismic signature of the dual explosions and quickly deduces that the Kursk has had an accident. His offer of assistance is rebuffed by his acquaintance Admiral Grudzinsky (Peter Simonischek), commanding the Northern Fleet, believing there could not be survivors. He had sent an unmanned drone to the Kursk's location and seen the blown-up hull over the video camera.
Grudzinsky's men hear the taps of the trapped men on the ship's hull, and the rescue ship Rudnitzsky is immediately deployed. Tanya and the other wives are reassured by this while Averin and his men are ecstatic upon hearing the thud of the rescue submersible on their hull.The Russians have rescue submersibles, Mir was sold to an American company which takes tourists down to see the titanic at $20K per person. The A-32 is in the black sea with stabilizer problems. Which leaves the Priz, which is old and antiquated. Russell (who has seen the Russian rescue vessel leave port and hence knows that there are survivors) believes Grudzinsky will ask for help and starts the prep of their own rescue ships and submersibles.
However, the aged and ill-maintained submersible is unable to establish a seal and must return to surface along with a 12-hour recharge of its batteries. The trapped men begin to run out of oxygen, so Averin and another crewman are forced to dive into the flooded compartments to obtain oxygen cartridges, nearly dying in the process. The men agonizingly await another attempt with little food and only a few blankets, as the water level slowly continues to rise. The Russian submersible's attempts to connect with the submarine continue to end in failure, as the morale of the crewmen and their wives on shore continues to plummet.
The wives in particular, during a public meeting, call out Admiral Vitaly Petrenko for refusing foreign help and for telling lies regarding the status of the submarine and the survivors. Petrenko is enraged. He forcibly removes all family members of the crew from the meeting. Admiral Grudzinsky asks Russell to bring his team to the accident site, but Petrenko responds by removing Admiral Grudzinsky from command and stalling the rescue team outside the accident zone.
Having heard no taps from the men during the latest rescue attempt (still no seal with the hatch), and believing them to be near-death if anything, the Russian Navy's Admiral Vitaly Petrenko (Max Von Sydow) finally accepts Russell's offer of aid with up-to-date equipment and divers. On the submarine, Averin composes a goodbye to his family, hoping that his young son Misha might have some memories of him. Oleg organizes a "breakfast buffet" with the little food available to raise morale, but during the celebration, crewman Leo (Joel Basman) accidentally drops an oxygen cartridge into the water, starting a flash fire that consumes the remaining oxygen. With minutes left of oxygen, and no means of escape, the remaining men sing their sea-shanty, "The Sailor's Band", wishing goodbye to each other.
Russell's divers finally manage to enter the boat, but have arrived too late, and find no survivors. At the funeral for the men, Misha (Artemiy Spiridonov) (The son of Mikhail) refuses to shake Admiral Petrenko's hand, evidencing the anger of the families at the stonewalling and refusal to accept aid by the Fleet. In honor of his father and for his courageous stand against the intimidating Admiral, Averin's fellow sailors give Misha his father's watch, to remember him by.
