I thought I had seen the light once the credits for The Strangers: Chapter 3, Renny Harlin’s ill-conceived, awfully bad horror trilogy, began. It pummelled me within the span of three years, making me feel like Rocky after his first fight with Clubber Lang in Rocky 3 (1982). But it was over; the nightmare ceased. As soon as the opening titles for Deep Water — a hokey, B-rate disaster/shark movie — began, I was startled to see the “Directed By” credit for none other than Renny Harlin. Chills went down my spine.
Of course, Harlin’s magnum opus for cheesy genre shlock Deep Blue Sea (1999) remains, inarguably, the second-best shark film after Jaws (1975). It’s a movie that defies logic and comprehensiveness, yet packs a propulsive, carnivorous bite for the days when major studios made glossy creature features. But the days of Deep Blue Sea and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1992) are long gone; the last decade indicated that Harlin had, perhaps, lost his touch.
Well, Harlin hasn’t regained his spark, necessarily, even if it’s clear Deep Water is treading on similar waters that made his 90s filmography highly entertaining, ridiculously stupid fun. Much like the framework of Deep Blue Sea, Deep Water opens with a variety of characters that are set up to be cornily sweet or absurdly over-the-top, led by a stilted hero with a closed-off heart and a troubled past. They are all thrust i into a disaster when their plane crashes in the Pacific Ocean, nowhaving to survive the aftermath of their wreckage as a horde of hungry sharks stands by.
That formula worked for something as prestigious and classically made as Deep Blue Sea, a Warner Bros. $80 million film featuring talent like Thomas Jane, Samuel L. Jackson, and Saffron Burrows. The budget for Deep Water looks like it has a quarter of the budget of Deep Blue Sea, with Aaron Eckhart playing the Jane role, only much more sternly and dour as First Officer, Ben. Alongside Eckhart is Ben Kingsley as Rich, the Captain for the doomed flight (whose small role for a big actor would imply he did less than half a week of shooting).
From there on, the film is a game of who looks ripe for becoming shark food. We have a young girl, Cora (Molly Belle Wright, fresh from her incredible debut performance in Omaha), who’s angry at her parents for making her responsible for her younger brother, Finn (Elijah Tamati); an obstinate jerk part of a traveling wrestling team, Hutch (Lakota Johnson), who is obsessed with bullying esports captain Sam (Li Wen Han)and love interest Lilly (Rosie Zhao); and undoubtedly the most selfish, inconsiderate, obstinate character you’ll see in a movie in the form of Dan (Angus Sampson). This man not only smokes wherever he pleases, pushes past people, and ogles women, but literally is the cause of the entire flight crashing due to his shoddily-kept phone charger sparking a fire in his luggage. You can’t wait for the sharks to devour him.
Deep Water is not aiming for depth; if the film’s five different screenwriters weren’t apparent, the brisk pace pivots from disaster film to horror creature feature. This script is a mishmash of disparate ideas. We go from leaving the airport to the disastrous crash that causes the plane (and characters) to separate in half, inciting three separate plots with separated groups of survivors. Harlin and editor, Geoff Lamb, understand the audience is not interested in the boozy, grizzled veteran of Captain Rich, the emotional angst of Ben, or the half-baked character arcs sprinkled throughout to give the supporting cast any discernible personality.
Harlin knows how to stage a compelling set-piece, especially when it comes to anticipating a shark attack. The wreckage entails a lot of dead passengers, and Harlin cleverly uses a floating body as our visual cue to anticipate a shark attack. While the special effects drastically pale in comparison to the wondrous animatronics used on Deep Blue Sea (even those CGI sharks had more distinct features and ferocity), a nice gush of blood bubbling from a horde of hungry sharks is sufficient in satisfying Deep Water’s craven thirst for carnage. The plane crash sequence has its moment of intense chaos, but the quick-cut editing and shaky camera close-ups, which hide the lack of special effects afforded to achieve a comparable plane crash, make it more annoying than cohesive.
Performances range from suitably fine to over-the-top to non-existent, as the material doesn’t allow much wiggle room for exploration. Eckhart has always been a reliable actor; he has the face of a square-jaw leading man, yet can exude a dramatic gruffness tempered at a proper tone. The character of Ben is fairly rote and straightforward: a struggling father unable to connect with his family because of a sick child, leaving him closed off and prone to losing his cool. His emotional tether lies in his care for Cora, who’s separated from her family and is feeling guilt from leaving her younger sibling alone in his seat before the crash.
Speaking of Cora, Wright is having a great year, between this and her beautiful performance in Omaha. While Cora doesn’t afford Wright a showcase for an Oscar reel, it does expand her horizon. Being the central heart of a schlocky horror adventure is not bad, especially when the core of her scenes is spent humanizing with Eckhart. Their dynamic is charming enough and gives us a pair of humans we don’t wish to see torn to shreds.
Then of course, there’s the big, burly beast that is Sampson’s Dan. Most creature features will have a detestable character to root for the monster to kill gloriously. Yet Dan is written to a point that strains credulity; he is both an obnoxious force that annoys the viewer and a necessary plot device to advance the story. He’s as much of a caricature as he is comedic relief. His performance is directed to a point that can deflate the tension that should arise when sharks start munching on other survivors.
Another aspect that deflates the tension is the film’s special effects. The sharks have a digital sheen that resembles the effects of a Netflix original more than a theatrical release, with the sharks mostly visualized by a rising fin, or an overstretched mouth rising from the water on top of an unsuspecting victim. Hardly any of the creatures are shown in full form, and when we do see them whole, we realize why. This undermines the effectiveness of the third act, as survivors have to huddle and work together; any time a shark shows up, it undercuts the stakes. One effect involving a flare gun in a shark’s mouth borders on hilarious camp, and if the self-serious tone were reduced to that level of campiness, the effects wouldn’t stand out too much.
Harlin gets more right than wrong in Deep Water, especially in the aftermath of his dreadful The Strangers trilogy reboot. Even if the shadow of that work may forever cloud Harlin’s filmography, it’s great to see him back in his element, albeit in a watered-down version of those strengths. Perhaps this is why Quentin Tarantino insists on retiring after ten films, as he fears most directors lose their touch as they age. “Directors don’t get better as they get older,” he said.
Renny Harlin is no Tarantino. It’s clear that the Harlin who instilled tremendous grit, verve, and unabashed ridiculous action of his earlier works is sorely lost. There’s a tameness to how certain characters, even in their death, lack the satisfying carnage you’d get in Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea when a famous actor gets torn to pieces. The self-serving finale, too, feels subdued, trying to tie a neat bow to character arcs that feel more contrived and dishonest than natural. Nevertheless, Deep Water is a welcome return for Harlin, even if his edgy, biting sensibilities are dulled out.
Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai
Feature Image Credit to Magenta Light Studios via IMDb