Deep Water Is the Movie We’ll All Be Watching on a Loop in Purgatory

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At the very edge of relevance, there’s a movie theater playing Deep Water. And in that strange, liminal space we all eventually reach – the one where things are finished but we haven’t fully accepted it – Renny Harlin’s new film will be on a constant loop. It delivers exactly what you expect: a massive plane crashes into the ocean, and the survivors become prey for hungry sharks. But it doesn’t just deliver – it overdelivers. The crash is long, terrifying, and feels like a compilation of your worst airplane nightmares. And despite how common shark attacks are in movies, this film manages to make them genuinely shocking, bloody, and even disturbingly realistic.

Let me tell you, Deep Water feels…empty. It’s like the filmmakers were afraid to actually say anything, to suggest there’s any real substance beneath the surface. The characters are paper-thin, and the themes are hammered over your head with such force it’s almost comical. There’s this bizarre scene where Aaron Eckhart’s character, a first officer, randomly offers life advice to a little girl about detours – it’s so out of nowhere it made me laugh. And then there’s Dan, played by Angus Sampson, who isn’t just a typical annoying passenger; he’s a walking disaster. He harasses the flight attendants, can’t stop smoking, cuts the line, and – get this – throws away the emergency GPS device! Oh, and he causes the plane crash with his faulty phone charger. Seriously. The audacity of this character is unbelievable. There’s a moment after the crash, with wreckage everywhere, and Dan is just casually grabbing peanuts and asking a wounded stewardess for a drink. Honestly, I half-expected to see a title card saying ‘Dan Presents…’ – it felt like he was directing the whole thing.

The film Deep Water introduces a large cast of characters quickly, setting up their stories in a rushed and somewhat superficial way. It tries for heartfelt moments, but they don’t quite land. We meet Sam, a Chinese esports player with a crush on his teammate Lilly, and Hutch, an initially unpleasant American player who surprisingly offers Sam romantic advice after a plane crash strands them all in shark-infested waters. The movie doesn’t clearly establish that they are esports players, leaving it to viewers to piece together from the credits. There’s also a shy man who likes a veterinarian, and a newly married couple dealing with squabbling children. The film attempts to resolve all these storylines, but the characters don’t really grow or change. They feel like plot devices rather than fully developed individuals, and the script seems to expect the audience to create their own emotional connections.

Director Renny Harlin was a major action filmmaker in the 1990s, known for both exciting blockbusters like Cliffhanger and Long Kiss Goodnight, and less successful films like Mindhunters and Driven. Deep Blue Sea fell somewhere in between – a fun, over-the-top thriller. While Harlin isn’t as prominent as he once was, he’s remained active, directing the recent Strangers films. His latest, Deep Water, is similar to Deep Blue Sea, combining disaster and shark elements. It feels like both a showcase of his skills and a reflection on the state of modern cinema. He still knows how to create a thrilling, even silly, jump scare, and the film is visually well-made, particularly its underwater and nighttime scenes. However, it also acknowledges that the golden age of these kinds of movies is over. The script is rushed, the acting feels detached, and the effects are cheap, suggesting a lack of genuine passion or artistry. It seems to ask, “Who needs quality when you have plane crashes and sharks?” and then answers, “Exactly.” Deep Water perfectly captures the feeling that in a world lacking meaning, all that matters is fleeting excitement – a quick burst of adrenaline to distract from the emptiness of life.

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2026-05-01 22:54