A few years ago, my GQ colleague across the pond Gabriella Paiella wrote a love letter to a movie about the Navy. "Why are so many guys obsessed with Master and Commander?" she asked, and hundreds of men on the internet were ready and waiting to answer. Paiella argued that the film - which takes place entirely on a 19th-century warship - is the Platonic ideal of a Dad Movie, and one that captures a quiet beauty in male friendships and the minutiae of nautical life (kinda like a cinematic Moby Dick).

It's a great piece, and now here I am invoking it to start a conversation about another navy movie many men - including, yes, myself - are obsessed with for far stupider reasons: Tony Scott's submarine masterpiece, Crimson Tide.

Though I was extremely late to Crimson Tide (it came out in 1995, when I was five years old), it has been playing on repeat in a remote part of my brain since I first watched it during the pandemic. When I see, say, a Coca-Cola bottle being slowly submerged in the ocean, I think of Crimson Tide. If I'm ever in an enclosed space with too many adult males who haven't seen the sun in weeks (I work at a men's magazine in the United Kingdom), I think of Crimson Tide. Cut me and I bleed - OK, you get the picture.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Crimson Tide is a film about a mutiny on a submarine starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. It's the best kind of 1990s action thriller - somewhere between over-the-top schlock and prestigious, ingenious moviemaking. I love it deeply, and I know many men who feel the same way - including, as he recently revealed in an interview that will arrive later this year on GQ, Tom Hiddleston. "I saw it when I was a teenager with my dad," Hiddleston told us. "And it's all set in a couple of rooms, and the special effect is the argument between [Washington and Hackman]. It's a debate that's live and the stakes are so high."

Another member of the Crimson brotherhood is The Athletic's Carl Anka (co-host of the excellent Talk of the Devils pod, as real heads know). Why does he love it? "Two of the greatest actors of the last 50 years crammed in a small space as the tension slowly ramps up - you don't get action films like this any more," he says. "The sweat is the thing that sticks out for me on a rewatch - modern films don't have the actors sweat and get grimy like this." Anka's point gets at what I think has given the movie such staying power - they really aren't making them like this anymore. Crimson Tide (it's streaming on Disney+ by the way) is a time capsule from a simpler time for movies, which we can hold, cherish and scream about at each other in the pub.

Washington plays Ron Hunter, a young Navy "XO", or second-in-command, who takes a job on the Alabama, a nuclear war sub under the command of Hackman's Captain Frank Ramsey. Though it's set after the Cold War, US-Soviet tensions are high, especially as a Russian rebel army has commandeered a nuclear missile site in the far east, and there's some suggestion that they're ready to use it. So, the Alabama is sent to patrol the waters and pre-empt an attack if necessary. From there, we're stuck deep underwater for a solid 90 minutes. Word of an imminent nuclear strike soon hits, and before they can confirm their orders, communication is cut off - as if things weren't claustrophobic enough, the outside world is now shut out entirely. At this point, the decision on whether to possibly ignite an all-out nuclear war falls to Ramsey, whose instinct is to strike first, whatever the cost. Hunter, on the other hand, is desperate to ensure they get confirmation, rather than cracking on in the dark.

Ramsey is a gruff, arrogant and difficult fella who brings his little Jack Russell with him wherever he goes (yes, that includes hundreds of metres below sea level). As he tells Hunter, he's from a generation that was never taught to question the "why" of war, just to follow orders. Hunter, on the other hand, is kind and conscientious, though still assertive enough to gain Ramsey's respect. It's your classic clash between old and new schools of masculinity - before they fully submerge, Ramsey makes Hunter smoke his first ever cigar out of the hatch, his eyes streaming as he chokes back a cough. I'll never be able to do justice to how great Hackman and Washington are together - two of cinema's greatest shouters, really fucking going for it. And even around those crescendos of anger, they are both so adept at communicating their opposing philosophies that you keep slingshotting between sides (even if Ramsey is kinda obviously the bad guy in it all).

If this movie were a person, it would have Air Force One's body, and A Few Good Men's brain. I don't think the reasons men like me love it are all that complicated. It is as tense as any movie I've ever seen, and the acting is god-level. And like Hiddleston says, maybe it's the fact that they've managed to make a professional dispute feel like a relentless gunfight that really lifts it above its peers in the genre. Or maybe it's just that submarines rule. Probably a bit of both.

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