Open Water (2003)

Open Water

reviewed by Ryan Ellis

August 23, 2004

Fiendish Tagline---A shark movie that isn't scary

My friends are going to be happy because I finally saw 'Open Water' and now

I can shut up about wanting to see it. Others were excited about the Cruise

picture or Shyamalan's latest or Big Willie's FXer. Those movies stunk like

a dirty skunk, so that was all the more reason to hope for big things from a

little indie picture that could. I've been jacked to see "the shark movie"

for months. Shark Week on Discovery and my annual viewing of 'Jaws' just

made me itch to see 'Open Water' even more. No film has much chance to live

up to those expectations, but a "Blair Witch in the ocean" is bound to scare

the living crap out of you, right?

Not really. It's more somber than terrifying. Scares are few. I only jumped

once and spent more time WANTING to be frightened than actually BEING

frightened. A friend and I recently discussed 'Friday The 13th', which has

one of the great shock endings ever. The movie itself isn't worth a damn,

but it has that one great GOTCHA scene that gives me a shiver just to think

of it. Open Water would not be better if it had its own Jason Voorhees-type

sea monster leaping out of the water and attacking people. Nevertheless, the

movie just doesn't cut it. There's no gut-twisting scene that will live in

my memory scarebanks until doomsday. Sure, the characters are caught in a

sea of dark dread. They're petrified. Too bad the movie didn't find a way to

put us in the water with them. I never felt involved.

So we open up with a scene of hectic domesticity. Susan (Blanchard Ryan) is

working like mad to unglue the phone from her ear long enough to get into

the car with Daniel (Daniel Travis). They're a modern couple, always busy

and scarcely free to go on vacation at all. They're happy, but not TOO

happy. A short while later, they've joined a few dozen other people in a

scuba boat motoring out to sea. Everyone frolics, fun had by all. The leader

of the expedition, Davis (Michael E. Williamson), apparently failed math all

through school and overlooks the fact that Susan & Daniel haven't returned

from the dive. The boat heads home without them...and they're stuck in the

middle of the ocean. Then the sharks come cruisin'.

Two questions. One, how cool are the ballyhooed shark attacks? Two, do they

survive? No comment on #2 and sorta cool on #1. It's wise to use fish

footage sparingly. We know they're swimming around nearby (sometimes we're

more aware than the characters are) and it would be cheesy to focus too much

on the predators. After all, Susan & Daniel have to brave the elements just

as much as the hungry wild life. They have no food, no water (oh, the irony

of being surrounded by the one thing you need most, yet you can't drink it),

and they can only swim for so long. Plus, it's cold, she starts to get sick,

and morale plummets as the hours tick by.

Chris Kentis was the auteur here. He writes, directs, edits, and even

performed much of the cinematography. He must be swimming in money because

it cost squat to make and Lion's Gate paid 2.5 mill for it at Sundance. The

film was made independently, but it just doesn't have that indie feel.

There's no sense of headlong, reckless showmanship you'd expect from this

subject matter. Casting fake sharks in your movie doesn't make it 'Jaws'. so

Kentis just went ahead and shot sequences with actual gray reef and bull

sharks. Now that's nuts, and I don't think it was worth it.

Maybe the movie just doesn't have anything to say. I sat patiently through a

lot of character development, which doesn't really accomplish much. Other

than a titillating tease of a gratuitously naked Blanchard Ryan and some

hotel room tension between this couple who'll soon become shark bait,

there's not a lot to grab you in the first third of this movie. Here's an

obvious comparison to 'The Blair Witch Project', which also takes a while to

get going. Not much happens for a long time, but the slow build is creepy

because the opening prologue told you that something eventually will. 'Open

Water' doesn't have nearly the same impact.

That's not to say it's a failure. I've been back and forth on this one for a

few days, trying to convince myself that the movie worked. There are several

nice touches. Digital video was the right choice for this story. The

equipment must have made it even easier to shoot most of the sea scenes at

water level. Generally, we only see what the actors see. There's a sly

homage to 'Jaws', since the characters are named Susan Watkins and Daniel

Kintner. [Chrissie Watkins and Alex Kintner were the first two victims in

Spielberg's blockbuster.] And it's a great choice to leave the screen pitch

black during one harrowing storm sequence. It's the closest I felt to real

apprehension in the whole movie...too bad it doesn't last longer.

Once in a while, Kentis cuts to the beach or the nearby town. It's a bait

and switch tactic. Giving us relief from this terrible situation for a

minute or so is not a good idea because we should stay with them as long as

they're out there. When you're going for such unrelenting reality, cutting

away to give your audience a break is a risky move. The film was already

collapsing in on itself, so I felt my interest lagging when we're swept away

from the ocean.

The actors are in it up to their asses from the beginning. They've got to

spend most of the film out in the real ocean with real dangers and get

precious little time to do any real acting. All things considered, they come

off pretty well. Blanchard Ryan has been in several flicks I've never heard

of, but she's got a chance to be in some better ones now. She's a beauty in

a Kate Winslet sort of way. I'm not certain if the girl can act (well, we

know she can play fear), but she's got a memorable face. Travis resembles a

wet Greg Kinnear. For a film debut, this isn't a bad way to get started.

People will remember the new guy who was in "that shark movie".

I'm tempted to discuss the ending. That would be unfair, though. What

ultimately happens to them is the one thing you shouldn't know ahead of

time. I didn't know how it would turn out and, frankly, I was a bit

surprised. After hours & hours of waiting for their boat to return and

slowly drifting miles away from the original spot, Daniel and Susan race

through all the emotions---gallows humour, denial, anger, defiance, blame,

and terror. Nothing special happens in these scenes, except that they're

handled with two actors just floating in the ocean. These non-attack moments

serve a necessary purpose until it's time for the sharp-toothed baddies to

sniff around again.

So here's a sidebar question...how do you leave 2 divers behind in the first

place? Truly, it's a bad businessman who leaves his customers stranded in

the middle of the ocean. Doesn't he want repeat business? Would a final

passenger confirmation by head count be too much to ask? The movie presents

the sloppy oversight about as believably as it can. And since 'Open Water'

is "based on true events", I guess the dopiness that sets the story in

motion might be exactly as it happened. I just hope they sued, sued until

the courts kicked them out, sued until the words "gross negligence" became

permanently associated with those careless boat owners.

When it was over, I heard a guy say, "That was horseshit". Maybe he expected

more shark attacks and gore and cool stuff like that. Or maybe he just

wasn't scared by what he'd heard was a scary movie. If only I could take a

stance as strong as this guy did. I liked how much Kentis and his team

accomplished with a minimal budget under dangerous conditions. Blanchard

Ryan has a bright future. I was very disappointed, though, because it just

wasn't a horrifying horror movie. That's their fault. Putting 'Open Water'

on a must-see pedestal and expecting too much from the shark movie was my

own damn fault.

To chew my chum line, write to flickershows@hotmail.com

Swim over to my website at http://groups.msn.com/TheMovieFiend

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