It’s strangely heartening that Renny Harlin is having something of a resurgence of late – it’s just a shame that it’s not particularly a good one. Not only did the Finnish filmmaker drag out his reboot of The Strangers franchise over three bloody years, but he also delivered Deep Water, a disaster thriller that had hungry sharks circle the survivors of a devestating plane crash.
Of course, anyone familiar with Harlin’s previous track record will know that he was responsible for arguably the greatest, dumb shark movie ever made in the form of the massively endearing and lovably stupid Deep Blue Sea. Yes, Jaws 3D is inadvertently funnier, and yes Jaws: The Revenge is undeniably dumber; but say what you will about the 1999 chomp-fest, it kicked all kinds of ass. It’s with this in mind that I approached Deep Water with a certain sense of hope – after all, if anyone could deliver reliable shark-based thrills, it has to be the guy that had Samuel L. Jackson torn to shreds 44 minutes into the very film he was headlining…
Thanks to a malfunctioning power bank sparking away in someone’s luggage, a fire breaks out on an international flight from Los Angeles to Shangai, which causes quite a dent in their arrival time when captain Rich and first officer Ben are forced to ditch the flaming aircraft into the ocean. However, what should have been a textbook splash down is made yet more complicated when an unseen coral reef causes the plane to break apart and scatter large chunks of itself over a wide area. After coming to terms with their new situation, the various groups of survivors have to figure out how to continue living when nature (ever the sadistic bitch) decides to complicate matters even further by having every shark within a 50 mile radius come hungrily rushing to grab a quick bite to eat.
In the floating remains of the cockpit, Ben, Rich, plane crew Penny and panicking child, Cora try to work out how to reunite with other sections of the aircraft and hopefully amass the locator and more rafts so they can avoid relying on the progressively sinking wreckage. However, in another section that’s precariously balanced on coral, tensions are rising as various passengers start to have beef with one another. Esports rivals Sam and Hutch can’t stop flying into a rage at one another, while proud, card-carrying dickhead Dan boasts a selfish survival instinct that puts everyone around him in danger. Worse yet, a quartet of passengers – including Cora’s stepbrother, Finn – are trapped in an airpocket in the submerged tail section and find that the waters are steadily rising.
With these scattered groups of characters all potentially shark-bait if someone doesn’t take charge, Ben is forced to put his own, personal problems on hold in order to try and ensure as many survivors as possible make it home. However, due to the nastiness of those sharks and the spitefulness of some screenwriters, not everyone is going to make it home unchewed.
Crafting the perfect, stupid shark film isn’t as easy as it looks – as endless Sharknado sequels can attest – but back in 1999, Harlin managed to nail the balance perfectly by hurling a sizable budget, a hatred of parrots and Skarsgårds, and an unkillable LL Cool J at it to deliver what essentially was Jaws indoors. However, while the director’s malevolent side is out there for all to see with his latest shark opus, Deep Water proves that 1999 was a very long time ago when considering Harlin’s ability to fling aquatic predators about the place. The thing is, while Deep Blue Sea is “good stupid”, and Deep Water is very much “bad stupid”, I’ve got to say that compared to the lion’s share of the multiple shark flicks that wash up on shore every year, it’s still vastly more entertaining than 90% of the other fish in the sea.
In a time when the majority of the genre is literally just unlikable people ending up in shark infested areas while on holiday, giving us a far more disaster movie style flavour by dealing with the aftermath of a typically bombastic plane crash is something of a relief. OK, granted, the noticably dire No Way Up beat Deep Water to the punch by a good two years when it comes to siccing voracious fish on slow-thinking plane crash survivors, but Harlin has some decent instincts when it comes to staging this sort of thing, even if the quality of some of the scripting and visuals constantly let him down. At numerous times, the vastness of the ocean looks painfully like the water tank/green screen combo that it obviously is, and every character has some sort of hurried back story – be it family problems, to an unrealised crush – that has to be ironed out before the cast get violently yanked under the surface of the water.
However, while Deep Water comes armed with a script as rudimentary as that insultingly bland title, if you’re in the mood for some ridiculous, low rent, survival stuff, Harlin still has just enough snap in his step to make things fun. Years directing action flicks has given him an attention to detail that makes the plane crash, and the various shark attacks quite fun. Flying debris takes out random passengers as a huge hole rips through the fuselage, prey get launched screaming up into the air as the sharks plow into them from below and most of the cast are savvy enough to not take this shit too seriously, be it Aaron Eckhart clenching his manly jaw throughout this entire thing, Ben Kingsley, who seems to now be accepting the roles that Trevor Slattery would resort to, or Angus Sampson, who seems dedicated to realising the most punchable asshole he can, just so we can punch the air when his irredeemable shitheel inevitably gets it.
However, while there’s a tremendous amount of fun at the randomness of who actually lives and who dies (it feels like the scripters did a coin toss for every character), you can tell they’re shooting for the shock of Jackson’s infamous demise in Deep Blue Sea; but it just comes of as accidently amusing when cast members clearly set up with full story arcs suddenly drown off-screen or are bitten in half at a moments notice just to keep you off balance. But just because Harlin’s delivered a dopey disaster film with the added bonus of sharks, it doesn’t mean he’s actually crafted something genuinely good. Just because you aren’t as bad as the majority of a genre, it doesn’t automatically make you good, and compared to far more crazed attempts such as Dangerous Animals and Under Paris, Deep Water still can’t quite raise itself to their level.
Those utterly sick of endless shark movies that present us with obnoxious and entitled twats fucking up their holiday by doing something stupid on the ocean will probably enjoy the change of pace. But while Harlin still has some of his old tricks and the cast is oddly recognisable, they’re constantly let down by dodgy visuals or damp plotting that’s content to slap The Posiedon Adventure and Jaws together and call it a day. Still, maybe add another half-star or so just for the moment where Eckhart deters an attacking murder-fish by shooting it in the face with a flare gun. That’s admittedly pretty fucking (j)awesome.
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