Jake Fuller, a decorated former Navy SEAL who lost his brother on a mission seven years before & has since refused to use a weapon, instead becoming a medical officer, is sent on a goodwill mission onboard a Russian nuclear submarine, the Odessa. But the Odessa has been hijacked by terrorists planning to create a new Soviet Union by launching the Hailstorm – an experimental nuclear cluster bomb that is highly unstable – onto Russian cities so that the Russian military will reclaim the former Soviet states in retaliation. Fuller is drugged & locked into a room while the terrorists make their way to Syria. But Fuller quickly recovers, aided by his nurse Swain, who has a secret mission of her own, planning to counterattack & kill the terrorists.It is interesting what happens in the real world while reviewing a film. The premise of Counter Measures – terrorists plan to force the Russian military into taking over former satellite states in retaliation for a perceived threat – has become somewhat accurate to an alarming degree. But thankfully no nuclear bombs have been used. The film was released in 1998 – a good decade & a half before what happened in Eastern Ukraine, where rebels determined to prevent the Ukraine joining the EU embarked on a terrorist campaign in order to 'liberate' their towns by illegal means. This little war, bolstered by the Russian annexation of Crimea (an expected move since the region has Russian warships stationed there), became infamous when the rebels, using a Russian-made & supplied surface to air missile, shot down a civilian jetliner over their skies, killing all on board. Russian complicity in this mess is obvious.Anyway, back to the film, Counter Measures (known in some places as Crash Dive 2) is a card-carrying member of the Royal Oaks studio & is directed by the veteran director Fred Olen Ray (who uses a pseudonym here for some reason). As far as action films go, the film is a bit of a disappointment due to the rather poor writing skills of Steve Latshaw, one of Jim Wynorski's hatchetmen writers & somebody who clearly doesn't do any fact-checking when it comes to writing his scripts. Everywhere you look, there are mistakes – the Navy SEALs don't use Kalashnikov assault rifles as part of their kit; the Russian Navy won't deploy a submarine with a weapon that hasn't been properly tested on board in case of disaster; & the US Navy's officers won't go out of their way to confront somebody who has been a decorated SEAL, even if he is indeed a 'conscientious objector'. And one thing I thought was kind of silly was the idea of Russian terrorists using a Nazi-made nerve agent to kill their victims – wouldn't it be better to use Russian-made nerve gas instead in order to disguise the hijacking? With Latshaw's writing skills factored in, Counter Measures is not terribly innovative in any way & the action scenes sometimes go to absurd lengths – key part being the scene where Dudikoff takes on a pistol-armed terrorist (played by Jason Voorhees himself – Kane Hodder), only to shoot himself in the leg, as well as Alexander Keith's semi-pathetic attempts to fight her assailants despite being shot twice & badly beaten. The story's twists are so predictable that you'll see them coming a kilometre away in advance & the final climax is a little on the implausible side.If I had to make a recommendation, it would be to try to find the cheapest copy of Counter Measures around, watch it then turn the DVD into a novelty coaster if you're not satisfied with it. I sure did – and at $2 a disc, it didn't break the bank.

"Counter measures" is a sequel to "Crash dive" . Both movies are "Die hard" clones with Michael Dudikoff ("American ninja") fighting bad guys on a submarine. There is very little difference between them in quality , but I do remember that the original "Crash dive" was slightly better."The hunt for Red October" , "Crimson tide" , "Under siege"… Better watch any of those movies. Or re-watch them. I have seen this movie only because I'm on a quest to watch as many crappy action movies as possible. Also , because I have fond childhood memories of "American ninja".I give it 1/10. Poor Dudikoff. His "career" really died after the 80's.

I don't know if there's an aphorism to put to this type of movie, but there should be, because this flick reminds me a lot of Steel Sharks. And the similarities are unexpected. Both movies are set on subs, both movies involve terrorists (of a sort), both movies are very cheaply done, and critically unrealistic. What've those links got to do with each other? You've got underwater listening devices that can identify screws among wreckage, an American submarine commander who has way less battle-sense than his Russian counterpart, and bad guys with ridiculously unrealistic, paranoid objectives. Anyone in any military service anywhere in the world could probably expand vastly on that list. They'd probably start with: instruments that do not register with military accuracy, but icons and labels that are marketed to American civilians.

Having already seen the superior CRASH DIVE, I wondered how another Dudikoff movie set aboard a submarine would be. Well, it wasn't that good. It's really the production values that sink this movie. Exterior shots of the sub were filmed on board the WWII sub U.S.S. Pomponito in San Francisco Bay (a great attraction to visit, by the way), while underwater and interior shots reveal a sub and a sprawling interior that looks like he came from an episode of SEAQUEST. A lot of scenes look rushed, like the filmmakers were running out of time and said, "Let's finish so we can return the equipment before it's overdue." As a result, performances are lackluster, scenes are choppy and seemed unfinished, and just the overall production looks bad. The sub-plot that runs throughout the film, set in Russia, always confused me. I could never tell what the purpose of it was, what relation it had (or may not have had) to the events occuring on the submarine. The climactic fight on the deck of the sub, between Dudikoff and bad guy James Horan, is probably the best moment in the whole film, though even it could have been better. But the way the bad guy gets it is actually one of my favorite climax moments from a Dudikoff film. But it's really not enough to save the film or make it recommendation-worthy. The Dudikoff/Fred Olen Ray (director) team faired better with FUGITIVE MIND and THE SHOOTER. If you want a see a good movie about terrorists seizing a nuclear submarine (and really the only movie so far to feature that concept, that I know of), Dudikoff's CRASH DIVE is much better.