Several years ago, Ethan Hawke said something interesting in an interview with Marc Maron. He admitted to having a lot of anxiety when he was cast in Training Day because he said that whenever he watched movies with Denzel Washington, he felt like his co-stars were blown out of the water by him. One exception that Hawke mentioned is Gene Hackman, who said the two played brilliantly off of each other in Tony Scott’s Crimson Tide, partly due to the fact that they were playing adversaries. Indeed, such was the power of Gene Hackman, who tragically passed away this week. While his career is loaded with classics, including The French Connection, The Conversation, The Royal Tenenbaums and so many more, one of his biggest box office hits was Crimson Tide, a movie that’s long overdue for a deep dive here on JoBlo!

When asked why he wanted to do Crimson Tide, Denzel Washington said it was because he wanted to be in there jousting with a master – referring to Gene Hackman. Indeed, Washington is probably the only living actor who one could compare to Hackman. If one were to remake Crimson Tide, it would be a no-brainer to cast him in the Hackman role and then put a young up-and-comer in the Denzel role – ah, but who could hold the screen like he did back in 1995?

The story for Crimson Tide has even more of a kick in 2025 than it did thirty years ago. It revolves around the crew of a nuclear submarine being deployed among instability in Russia. Gene Hackman plays Frank Ramsay, the soon-to-be-retired captain of the USS Alabama, with Denzel as Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter, his executive officer. The movie revolves around the ship being ordered to launch its nuclear missiles, with conflict arising between the captain and his XO when a second message is cut off before they can receive it. Ramsay believes the orders were being confirmed; Hunter believes they were being told to stand down. With literally the fate of the world at hand, the two men go to war, with Hunter’s loyal officers committed to putting down an attempted mutiny. In contrast, Hunter and his men believe they are preventing nuclear war from accidentally breaking out.

The movie has sympathy for both men, and it couldn’t have been cast any better, with Hackman and Washington having a brilliantly adversarial relationship, albeit one tinged with mutual respect and a tiny bit of perhaps racial animosity – which gives the film some much commented upon, and juicy, racial subtext.

Indeed, there’s something so juicy about how Hackman and Washington go mano-a-mano, with both bringing out the best in each other. The late Tony Scott directed the film, and it kicked off a long series of collaborations between him and Washington, with Denzel always crediting him as one of his favourite directors. At the time, Scott was coming off of True Romance, a movie which was, at the time, critically reviled, even if it later became a huge cult classic, which is deservedly called one of his greatest films. Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were the producers. Those two were the biggest producers of the eighties, but their careers, along with Scott’s, had largely imploded on the set of the Tom Cruise movie Days of Thunder, where tales of behind-the-scenes debauchery (which we went into HERE) became legendary. Crimson Tide put all involved back on top, with it being a juicy mix of a Hunt for Red October-style techno-thriller mixed with heavy-duty acting fireworks, which makes the film play out like a non-stop action thriller, even though there’s very little actual physical conflict in the film.

While Washington and Hackman are incredible, the movie also benefits from a terrific script, which is credited to Michael Schiffer, who would later work on the Call of Duty video games, but also had rewrites by the three best script doctors in town, Steven Zaillian, Robert Towne, and perhaps infamously Quentin Tarantino. Why do I say infamously? If you watch the movie, it’s very obvious where the Tarantino dialogue comes in, with an onscreen argument over who was the better illustrator of Silver Surfer, and other pop culture references having his distinct stamp on them. QT, of course, knew Tony Scott from True Romance, but when he was on set, Tarantino was infamously cornered by Washington, who loudly chastised him for the use of racial slurs in his scripts. In the years since, Washington has expressed regret for the incident and says he and Tarantino have since buried the hatchet, with Denzel’s daughter, Katia, actually working as a P.A on the set of Django Unchained.

The supporting cast in the film is similarly choice, with Viggo Mortensen playing a young officer whose loyalties are divided. At the same time, George Dzundza has a superb part as the ship’s ranking non-com, whose conscience forces him to be disloyal to his captain. Plus, there’s a young James Gandolfini as the most Die Hard of Hackman’s loyal officers, Ricky Schroder, Steve Zahn, and even the great Jason Robards in an unbilled cameo at the movie’s end. Tie it all up with a score by Hans Zimmer, and you’ve got the recipe for a classic thriller.

The movie was a blockbuster in the summer of 1995 and proved to be a major boost for Washington, with him having finally headlined a blockbuster of his own, and thirty years later, he’s still one of the most bankable leading men in the business. As for Hackman, it was just another in a long series of blockbuster movies he had roles in, but his performance is widely regarded as a highlight in his late career. The movie remained a favorite of Tony Scott’s until he died, with him rarely being photographed without him sporting the red U.S.S Alabama hat Hackman wears in the movie. Of course, watching Crimson Tide now is bittersweet, with Scott, Gandolfini, Robards, and Hackman all gone. If you haven’t seen it in a while, give it a watch and see all of these legends performing at the top of their game.