Ben Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart pilot a commercial airliner straight into the center of a feeding frenzy in this above-average shark thriller.
Renny Harlin’s solid and entertaining film, *Deep Water*, centers on a plane that crashes right in the middle of a massive pack of sharks. And let me tell you: those sharks are absolutely ravenous.
Director: Renny Harlin
Writers: Pete Bridges, Shayne Armstrong, S.P. Krause
Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Angus Sampson
One would think that the sound of a 747 (or whatever it is) splitting in two right over their favorite dining spot would scare these mako sharks away; however, these predators—rendered via CGI, though convincingly enough—smell, both literally and figuratively, blood in the water. The wreckage of the plane is still ablaze when they begin devouring the survivors, acting as if they were perfect, God-given jump scares. Even the tiger sharks that devoured so many of Quint’s shipmates—crew members of the USS Indianapolis—in the film *Jaws* had the courtesy to wait 30 minutes; I suppose that, in today’s economy, no one can pass up the opportunity for a free meal—especially when the menu turns out to be a bit more succulent than usual.
Perhaps that explains why Harlin felt drawn back to the ocean depths after so many years. Since his last foray into the deep blue with *Deep Blue Sea* (1999), the director has largely busied himself with low-profile projects. That 1999 film still vies with *Jaws* for the title of the movie with the most unforgettable shark-related deaths in cinema history—and, tragically, it remains the only film ever made that concludes with LL Cool J rapping about how his hat resembles a shark fin. Undoubtedly, this explains why *Deep Water*—not to be confused with the *other* *Deep Water*, the one where Ben Affleck obsesses over his snail collection while Ana de Armas cuckolds him ad nauseam—feels much more like a *real* movie than any of the video-store dreck and *The Strangers* sequels Harlin has been mass-producing throughout this century.
In a word: money. In three slightly more confusing words: Gene Simmons’s money. In fact, the KISS frontman—also known as Chaim Witz, or "The Demon"—has invested in a financially robust production company alongside Arclight Films President Gary Hamilton; their first initiative involved resurrecting the sequel to *Bait 3D*, which was originally scheduled to shoot in 2014 but was cancelled due to its "uncomfortable similarities" to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Good news: the only "uncomfortable similarities" that persist in *Deep Water* are those it shares with the B-movies of yesteryear (e.g., patience, emotional depth, and characters who die of sheer carnal desire)—elements that manage to impact the viewer precisely because of how unusual it is to find them in this era of low-quality, direct-to-streaming disaster flicks—veritable "trash"—such as *Thrash*.
Like every great movie, Renny Harlin’s solid and entertaining *Deep Water* is about a plane that crashes headlong into a massive school of sharks. And let me tell you something: those sharks are fucking hungry.
One might think that the thunderous roar of a 747 (or whatever it is) snapping in two right above their favorite dining spot would scare off these mako sharks; However, these predators—recreated via CGI quite convincingly—literally smell blood in the water, and the wreckage of the fuselage is still ablaze when they begin devouring the survivors, acting as if they were the perfect, God-given jump scares. Even the tiger sharks that devoured so many of Quint’s shipmates—crew members of the USS *Indianapolis*—in the movie *Jaws* had the courtesy to wait 30 minutes; I suppose that, as things stand these days, no one can afford to pass up the opportunity for a free meal, especially when the menu turns out to be a bit more succulent than usual.
By comparison, the other characters make these guys look complex. A round of applause for *Mad Max: Fury Road* actor Angus Sampson, who earns a standout credit for his portrayal of Dan—the worst human being to ever walk the face of the Earth. A sweaty, crumpled human rag whose sole mission in life is to be so utterly detestable that even good-hearted people would simply shrug when a shark devours him right under their noses; and, in that regard, business is booming. He moves through *Deep Water* with all the grace of a turd floating in a public swimming pool, badgering Northeastern Airlines employees for a cocktail even after the plane has plunged into the ocean.
Naturally, it is precisely because Dan lies about carrying a lithium battery in his suitcase that the plane ends up crashing—a catastrophe Harlin turns into a shocking, phobia-inducing action sequence that proves even more terrifying for its step-by-step clarity than for all the physical damage it inflicts upon the passengers. Yes, people still get sucked out through holes in the fuselage, as is customary, but not before being pulverized by flying food carts and torn to shreds by shards of broken glass.
While the plane crash might lack the dark, macabre comic glee that Sam Raimi brought to a similar event in the recent *Send Help*, Harlin is very selective in his approach to "fun" in this film. Although *Deep Water* is undoubtedly brainlessly stupid, it is also charged with that kind of pure, genuine sentimentality rarely found in typical summer entertainment fare. Brainless yet moving, this is by no means the only disaster movie that expects the viewer to rejoice at some deaths while being moved to tears by others; However, even the deaths that seem "deserved" in this film are tinged with tragedy (*spoiler alert*: Dan has three kids!), while the truly tragic deaths prove sad enough to suggest that *Deep Water* takes itself far more seriously than most of the audience likely will.
It is difficult to reconcile that approach with a film whose characters seem to be just a few "AI chips" away from passing the Turing test. Kelly Gale and Ryan Bown play a comically attractive newlywed couple who—in a decision equal parts insane and understandable—decide to join the "Mile High Club" despite flying with their two young children from previous marriages (both characters end up being pivotal to the story in their own way). Meanwhile, we find Kate Fitzpatrick in the role of a sassy, malicious version of that stereotypical elderly woman who spends the entire flight wanting to show you photos of her grandchildren; Li Wenhan and Zhao Simei as two star-crossed gamers who belong to the same esports team; and Lakota Johnson as a muscular, comically aggressive, and dim-witted American who remains hell-bent on picking fights with his fellow passengers while they cling to a sinking piece of fuselage, surrounded by dorsal fins. There is also a handful of beautiful flight attendants who, in a way, end up blurring into one another or fading into the background.
It proves impossible to empathize with any of these characters in the traditional sense—or even to consider them "people" in the conventional sense—yet Harlin invests in them with a conviction that is endearing, if not entirely contagious. With a plot straight out of modern *trash* cinema—yet paced in a way that recalls the classic disaster films of the 1970s—*Deep Water* manages to extract genuine emotional impact from its suspenseful moments by focusing on those small details that films as absurd as this one often overlook: the respectful friction between Ben and Rich as they devise a way to exit the plane; the spatial arrangement of the various cabin fragments following the crash; or the manner in which the sharks circle their victims, just as they used to do in old cartoons.
All of this conveys a strong sense of intentionality, which makes it all the more disappointing that the deaths prove so predictable and telegraphed on every occasion (one might expect something more from the man who gave us Samuel L. Jackson’s most iconic on-screen death), and that the film ultimately stalls out—drifting aimlessly in the ocean—as it inches toward its not-so-grand finale. However admirable *Deep Water*’s attempt to maintain a serious and realistic tone may be, Harlin’s film would have benefited enormously from...
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