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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
 Posted - 03/13/2007 : 11:17:37 PM
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Work has been exhausting and depressing the last couple of months. But things are showing signs of slowing down now (here’s hoping I didn’t just jinx myself), and I’ve been feelin’ the writing bug nipping at my brain.
There were several movies I thought of throwing out there; the three that beckoned most were The Omega Code, the pilot and first-season ender for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (bidi bidi bidi) and Spielberg’s two-hour gagfest War of the Worlds. (Yes, I considered letting the Spiel-meister have it with both barrels.) Lady in the Water was also a contender, but reading the book The Man Who Heard Voices gave me pause (check it out from your library, or wait until it hits paperback; maybe the movie’s failure will be mentioned in the new edition). M. Night Shyamalan may have gone off the deep end, but at least he was trying to do something different. (Although I’d tell Shyamalan that, to be brutally honest, Nina Jacobson was right.)
And then I happened across a mention on IMDb a few weeks back. Open Water 2: Adrift was coming to DVD. W-h-a-t?! If you’ve seen Open Water, you’ll know that the material doesn’t exactly lend itself to sequels. But I knew this was a potential gold mine upon reading the circumstances around this particular, uh, thing. It was a German-made movie called, simply, Adrift, produced about the same time as Open Water, then shelved (perhaps because its makers realized Open Water would make them look stupid? Maybe?). Then along came our good buddies at Lionsgate. They happened upon Adrift and went for the quick buck, snapping the movie up (almost certainly for next to nothing), slapping the Open Water title on it (I suspect Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, makers of Open Water, are seriously pissed off right now), and shipping it out.
Gee, thanks, Lionsgate! You bastards.
Out of morbid curiosity, I rented it. Guess I deserved to kiss four bucks goodbye.
Dear sweet merciful God in Heaven. This thing sucks.
You noticed that I titled this review Adrift. That was the film’s original title. Open Water had its flaws, but for the most part it was a very, very well-crafted, and incredibly intense little thriller. I am not going to sully its name by calling this piece of kelp Open Water 2.
Everybody... into the water!
We begin with about three minutes of video footage, showing five twentysomething friends, three guys and two ladies, horsing around with their surfboards, mugging for the camera. It goes on about three minutes too long, and it makes the camerawork in The Blair Witch Project look like something Kubrick might have shot. No one says or does anything memorable; all that we get from it is that these guys are gonna be “best friends” until the end of time, as some “spooky” music plays in the background. Anyone taking bets on whether these people are gonna want to throw their “Best Friends Forever” rings in the trash before this movie’s through?
The video ends, finally, and we cut to black and see the words “Based on true events.” Open Water used the same words. That movie cheated a little, but technically it was correct. If memory serves, Chris Kentis read about a couple who disappeared after being left behind by mistake on a scuba diving expedition and used that as a jumping-off point for his script. This time around, one suspects that the filmmakers and/or the good people at Lionsgate (or both) are lying through their teeth.
Now it’s “Mexico, Five Years Later.” Two of the young people in the video clips are driving an SUV along a winding road. They exchange some [sarcasm] witty and realistic banter [/sarcasm] before they hear a baby in the back seat, crying. Hubby and Wife sing “Frere Jacques” to the kid, calming her down, then they segue into some “improvised” lyrics, giving the baby’s name: Sarah. Brace yourself, kiddies. This stuff’s pretty clunky, but it’s about as good as the dialogue gets. (Shudder)
We’re then treated to a montage of shots, mostly from a helicopter (and the camera operator on board wasn’t too good: the helicopter shots here are pretty shaky), as a generic pop-rock song plays. The names of the cast appear, and that’s the end of the credits. No crew names, and no title. It’s entirely possible that the original title appeared here (or somewhere else), and Lionsgate (or the filmmakers) just snipped it out. If that’s the case, it’s pretty cheap. I don’t remember the names of the people in this thing, and it’s doubtful any of them will become household names. During the montage, Hubby and Wife pass a couple on a motorcycle, and both couples wave to each other. Seems motorcycle couple are two of the other people on the tape.
They stop at the seashore, near a wharf where lotsa yachtsa are moored. Names all around: Wife’s name is Amy, Hubby’s name is James, the guy on the bike is Zach, his gal is Lauren. Oh, and today is Zach’s birthday. You’ll understand if I lapse into calling them Wife, Hubby, Other Guy, and Other Gal from time to time, right? Amy is the only one who’ll be given any real personality, and you may wish she was just as colorless as these other panes of glass. So, Amy dons a life jacket (seriously!), and they all go walkin’ on down to find a boat named the Godspeed. Irony Alert! Anyway, Amy pauses for a moment before following the others, and the camera does a very poorly-executed Vertigo zoom on Amy looking at the wharf. We get a quick, grainy cut of a little girl swimming in the water. Oh, gee, is this a flashback? Amy makes her way to the boat in a drawn out scene, where we hear and see clips of the little girl playing with a man in the water.
Gee whillikers, I think I’m having a psychic flash! The little girl was Amy as a kid, and her father drowned, and that’s why she’s scared of the water! Wow! How profound!
In his book Making Movies, Sidney Lumet mentions a hoary screenwriting gimmick that he calls the Rubber Ducky Device. He explains it thus: the movie will have some version of a scene where the villain tells us that someone took his rubber ducky away from him when he was a kid, and that’s why he’s a killer/criminal/wealthy industrialist now. Well, the Rubber Ducky device is alive and well today. To make matters worse, this and Amy’s maternal instincts towards her baby are her complete character. That’s it. Nothing else. (For that matter, we’re never given any background info on any of the other characters, with one exception, and you’ll wish he’d been just as underwritten.)
So, they get on the boat and look around for the fifth member of the party: the boat’s owner, Dan. They find Cap’n Dan in his cabin, in the middle of getting some Afternoon Delight (skyrockets in flight) with a Sweet Young Bimbo named Michelle.
The party files out and lets Dan-o and Michelle finish up. More forced banter, then we get the birthday party. Michelle brings out a cake shaped like a pair of breasts (with “Breast Wishes” written on it. Comedy!), Zach blows out the candles, then they set sail.
Dear Lord, we’re at the nine-minute mark, and already the pain is setting in.
After a brief bit of filler (a montage of the boat sailing on the briny blue), we join three of Our Intrepid Explorers making small talk telling the audience that Dan-o’s doing really well in business, and this boat of his is brand new. In the cabin, Hubby and Amy put the kid to bed, setting up a baby monitor. Amy unzips her life jacket but keeps it on. Hubby tells her she’s not crazy; her behavior is “perfectly normal.” Um, yeah. What isn’t normal is the dialogue. So far, I honestly haven’t heard a single line that sounds natural. Every word spoken sounds forced. Oh, also, “Frere Jacques” plays on the baby’s music box. Great. This is gonna be, like, a recurring theme, right?
Outside, Cap’n Dan and Michelle reveal they’ve known each other for all of two weeks. The movie wins some minor points by having Other Gal commenting about Michelle’s IQ (or lack thereof) to Zach. Next, there’s a scene where the gang toasts Zach on his birthday (with Amy having orange juice, since she’s breast-feeding). Michelle comments on Amy’s life jacket (which wasn’t sticking out like a sore thumb for the audience already, thank you). Real subtle, guys: the music on the radio shuts off the instant Michelle brings this up.
We see a weird shot of the gang, seen from up high on the mast. Then there’s a jump cut to the same scene, shot from maybe a foot to the left. This looks really bad; I’d like to have a word with the director and the editor of this thing.
Then they get up and start dancing for a bit. And there’s another jump cut. Gah! Other gal strolls up to the bow, and Zach tags along, catching up with her on what she’s been up to lately. Hey, I thought these two were a couple. Anyway, wouldn’t they have done this earlier, maybe when they met up to get on that bike? Yet another jump cut, and... Oh, no. Other Gal stand up at the bow and raises her arms. (Aw, please, no.) She leans forward. Crikey, not another I’m-the-king-of-the-world bit! And Zach spells it out, just in case anyone in the audience has been on Mars the last eight years.
All of this has done nothing to advance a plot of any kind. It’s pure background. Now, this can work if handled right. Deliverance, The Exorcist, and, more recently, The Descent (and to a lesser extent, Open Water) are examples of this. Essentially, these films all sent the message: “We’re gonna hold off on the main story a bit so you can get to know something about the characters.” That’s fine. If the characters are interesting enough, the audience should be okay with it. Here, though, interesting is not the first term that pops into mind when thinking of these characters. Try bland and mind-numbingly boring. It’s pure filler, not a good sign for a movie that runs all of 94 minutes. For comparison, Open Water trimmed most of its fat and clocked in at a very lean 79 minutes.
I’m gonna do my own compare-and-contrast here. Like I said, Open Water wasn’t perfect, but its crew (of TWO!) did a helluva job with it. So, to throw into sharp relief just how badly Adrift botches it, I’ll put in a number in parentheses from time to time. Scroll on down to check out a corresponding scene in Open Water to see how this stuff can be done RIGHT. And everything above fits into Footnote (1). (Warning, I’m probably going to gush over Open Water. If you didn’t like that movie, you may be in for a long slog.)
After some more of this filler, and a shot of the boat accompanied by “ominous” music, we see Michelle in a yellow string bikini. Frankly, Michelle doesn’t do it for me. Physically, she’s rail-thin, not all that far from looking like Kate Moss (another “super” model whose appeal I don’t understand). Add to that, she’s an utter bimbo (2). Michelle wants to go for a swim. So Dan-o breaks out the masks and knife. He gives Michelle an inflatable dolphin, and Michelle squeals with joy. Literally. So Hubby, Zach, Michelle, and Other Girl go into the drink... Ow!!! Stop with the jump cuts! There were two in that bit! Anyway, Amy stays on board because she hears her baby crying on the monitor... and I swear to God I’m not kidding, there’s a jump-cut in the baby’s cries! No, not in the picture, on the soundtrack! Oh, yeah, Dan-o stays on board as well, because it’s in the script.
While the gang outside talks about nothin’, Amy plays with the baby, and she and Dan-o talk about nothin’. Amy refers to Michelle as “Barbie,” and I have to admit, it’s a good name for that sack of hair. I’m callin’ her that for the rest of the review.... GAAAHHHH!!! There are five jump cuts in thirty seconds, in a straight dialogue scene! Stop that!!! The director’s name, by the way, is Hans Horn. Don’t feel bad if you don’t remember it; it’s doubtful anyone else will.
After a bit more filler with the folks in the water, we go back to Amy and Dan. Amy’s still got that damn life jacket on, and the dialogue reveals that Dan knows about Amy’s father drowning. So, he decides to cure her of her phobia... by picking her up, forcibly carrying her to the side, and jumping in the water with her in tow! In a moment, we will realize that Dan is dumber-n-dirt, dude. We already know from this bit that he is quite cruel.
After Amy hits the water, we go into a full flashback of Amy’s dad drowning. How nice. Yeah, we didn’t get this the first time, dummies that we are. It’s shot and edited in a very choppy fashion, all grainy and distressed. Ooooooh, artsy! Note that little Amy has a heavy accent. Vat iss zee German vord for oopsy? This goes on for nearly two minutes, then we’re back in present day... but still over-exposed, grainy, and choppy. Hmmmmm, someone’s trying to be a little Oliver Stone here! Yes, a poor man’s Oliver Stone. Boggles the mind, don’t it? We hear dialogue revealing that Dan didn’t put out a ladder before jumping in. Finally we get back to normal shooting. Our Zeroes try to climb the outside of the boat to the deck, but the hull is much too smooth and slippery to allow that.
Sigh. What this means, of course, is that Dan has a brain the size of a pea. You can say the same thing about everyone else in this movie (with the possible exception of Amy — maybe): no one thought to hang out a ladder.
There’s another problem with this scenario. I’ll admit that my knowledge of yachts is as follows: they go on the water, and they’re more expensive than your average combo meal at McDonald’s. But I suspect (and if anyone knows different, please correct me) that there are regulations that dictate that a boat of this size would have handholds or ladders built into the hull precisely to prevent what we see happening here. Excuse me for a moment, while I upgrade my internal BS detector to the new Fertilizer Plant Edition; it looks like I’m gonna need it, now that we’re into the story proper. (3)
So, they spend a few minutes banging around the hull of the boat, trying to find some way on, while Hubby sings “Frere Jacques” (!) to Amy, who has apparently passed out. Lucky girl. Too bad for her, though, she comes to, and asks about the baby. Hubby reassures her everything will be fine (Irony Alert!) and reminds her that the kid could “sleep through a hurricane. And my crappy singing.” And a crappy movie, hopefully.
This is intercut with the other four schmoes slapping their hands on the hull trying to climb up. I noticed there was a large square panel on the side of the boat. Why didn’t these idiots open it up? It might provide a handhold or foothold. If the panel won’t open on its own, they have a knife they could use to pry it open! I’m not saying that would work and save the day; I’m pointing out that no one even THINKS about it! Dummies.
Barbie starts whining that she’s tired and cold. Hey, join the crowd, Toots. And she wasn’t all tired and cold six minutes ago, before they all realized they’d literally jumped off the deep end (and the movie implies they were out swimmin’ for a while). She shivers and clings to her inflatable dolphin, using it as a makeshift life preserver, until Cap’n Dan asks to use it. He actually tries to step on it, using it as a platform so he can get up onto the boat. Whutta surprise! It didn’t work! Instead, he popped the damn thing, and now it’s leaking its air out. Good job, Danny boy, two for two so far.
So, they try something else: there’s a big American flag waving off the stern of the boat. Dan is able to reach it... Any bets on whether the flag will rip or the pole will break? My money’s on the flag rippin’ (because then the director can show a torn American flag, making a statement about... uh, something). Hey! I won! Gimme your money! And yes, they do indeed show the torn flag flappin’ in the wind. Zach shows he has a modicum of sense, hanging onto the piece of flag they got, hoping they can use it somehow.
The next two minutes are almost pure empty dialogue. Someone decides to swim out a few yards and look for boats on the horizon, and Dan dives underwater to look around. No reason for his dive, except the filmmakers wanted to remind the audience that they have at least one diver’s mask. Then Barbie starts screaming that something just touched her leg. Shark! Shark! (Oh, if only.) Dan goes down to take a look. We don’t see anything around them, but he suggests they kick their legs a bit and scare whatever’s down there off. It doesn’t matter one way or another, because the whole matter is dropped after this scene, but hey, it did eat up another minute or so of running time, right? That’s what this movie’s doing now, just clocking time. And we have over an hour to go. (Groan.) (4)
Everyone looks at Dan and tells him he’s an utter fool. And they’re right. Dan counters that any one of them could’ve thought to put a ladder out. And he’s right. So, everyone is right. And everyone is a possible candidate for this year’s Darwin Award. Except for Amy, and she’s a basket case. Oh, and after all the stupid moves Dan’s made so far, the others expect him to be able to come up with a way to get back on board. As Zach says, “You’re MacGyver. Think of something!” Yeah. Richard Dean Anderson would be insulted.
Amy then points out that the baby is still up there? D’you remember Sarah? Oh, there she is, the movie shows a shot of her sleeping in her crib. That’s what the baby is for this movie: a plot device. Bad form, filmmakers. Bad, bad form.
Now Barbie goes into panic mode, making a try at stealing Amy’s life jacket, then whining for a full two minutes. (5) Please tell me Bruce the Mechanical Wonder Shark will make an appearance and gulp her down. Nope, no such luck. Out of this whole annoying bunch of dopes, Barbie may edge out Cap’n Dan as the worst. We then get a one-two punch of wince inducing moments. First, Barbie starts reciting the Lord’s Prayer, as the music tells us this moment is supposed to be, you know, emotional and stuff. The actress playing Barbie is particularly bad in this scene; I was fighting the urge to laugh through this whole scene. (6) And then the next punch: the others get into a debate over whether there’s a God watching over all of us! Okay, this sort of thing can work very well (look at Signs) if the script is good and the director competent. That’s not the case here; we’re left wondering why these guys are getting into a religious discussion at a time like this! (7)
We then go into a montage of shots of the boat, the ocean, the sky, the “Breast Wishes” cake. Yes, it’s still on the deck, and the candles have never been lit. Stupid movie. And we get more empty muttering from the characters (and even more whining from Barbie). Ah well, they ate another five minutes.
Then they hear Zach’s cell phone, which is in his jacket, which just so happens to be hanging off the deck. They’re able to get the jacket, and get to the phone. Zach’s sister is calling to wish him a happy birthday. Zach tries to tell her what’s going on, but the phone starts to short out (even if the phone were working, he wouldn’t be able to get through: Barbie’s panicked shouting all but drowns him out). Finally, in frustration, Zach chucks the phone into the water.
Woo hoo! Well done, Zach! Your cell phone miraculously got a signal way the hell out here, and it was still functioning (at least partially) even after it got wet, and you threw it away. You and Dan are now competing for the Stupidest Castaway Award. Something occurred to me here. They had no trouble reaching Zach’s jacket, though it wasn’t hanging down all that low off the deck. They should be able to use it as a makeshift lasso, looping it around the railpost, then having someone pull him- or herself up far enough to grab the post. And five minutes later, the movie’s over! Again, maybe that’ll work, maybe it won’t. But no one thinks of it.
Oh, Lord, here we go again. Barbie starts opening her big mouth. I imagine the others looking at her and thinking, We could get away with it. At one point, Barbie asks, “Why won’t anyone listen to me?!” I said, out loud, “Because you’re a stupid bitch, ya stupid bitch!” Really, that's the only way to describe her. (Reference Point 7 again)
Finally, after knocking out some more screen time, everyone calms down, and Cap’n Dan says, “I have an idea.” Can’t wait to see what this genius cooks up.
His plan is simple. Everyone will strip off the bathing suits or swim trunks, modesty be damned. Then they’ll use the knife to cut the clothes (and the piece of flag) into strips and fashion a rope out of them. Then someone will lasso the railpost and pull— Hey, wait a minute! What happened to Zach’s coat?! It would probably have more material than all the swimsuits combined! One more thing. Anyone ever used a knife to cut fabric while in the water? I’ve never done this, but you have to remember, they’re doing this while treading water, with absolutely nothing to prop themselves on. This would be extremely awkward. Well, maybe it would work.
A teensy bit of credit should go to the movie here, though; the idea, at its basic root, isn’t too bad.... which begs the question: when’s the other shoe gonna drop?
Another quick bit of filler here. A boat speeds by, and Our Zeroes try to flag it down, but the boat’s passengers think these guys are just some nude swimmers having a fun afternoon, and they speed off. Of course, no one in the water thinks to use the arms-waving-over-the-head distress signal... except Amy. Methinks she’s gonna be this movie’s Final Girl. Let’s see. She’s given one-and-a-half dimensions (as compared to the one dimension — if that — of everyone else), she’s not an a$$hole or a serious whiner or a complete imbecile.... Yep, she’s gonna survive. No guarantees for anyone else, in case anyone cares.
Amy reminds us that Sarah is still on the boat, and we cut to the baby, still asleep. This is almost as repetitive as a Philip Glass composition, except that Philip Glass knows how to make that stuff sound good.
While Zach goes to work making the rope, Hubby decides to check and see if there’s a way in from under the boat. Dan-o doesn’t know If there’s a way in down there. Huh? You bought a boat and you don’t know— Dan and Barbie are a perfect couple, aren’t they. Put together, they have half a brain. (Actually, there’s a reason why Dan knows so little about his boat, but it’ll be a true eye-roller.) Um, Hubby, I have a question. Why are you checking the underside of the boat now? Why not wait until after you’ve tried the rope thingy?
Oh. It’s in the script. All right then, here’s Dan-o’s mask and the knife. Go and take your risky little recon.
While Hubby tells Amy what he’s doing, we hear Zach say, “Is the rope strong? It’s gotta hold me when I climb up.”
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa! Zach is gonna climb up on this flimsy thing?! The guy weighs 200 pounds! Why not send one of the women up?! None of them looks like they could weigh more than 120! (And Barbie probably doesn’t crack the 100-pound mark.) Why are you guaranteeing this won’t work?!
Because the movie is at the 45-minute mark, and we have half a show to go. And because these characters are morons.
The other shoe just dropped.
So Hubby checks out the underside of the hull while the others finish the rope and start tryin’ to get one end up on the deck. At one point, Hubby comes up for air, and we see one two three four jump cuts in about as many seconds. For the first time, it was clear that all these stupid jump cuts were a stylistic choice on the part of the director.
Note to Hans Horn: when your “stylistic choices” look like mistakes for half your movie, you don’t belong in a director’s chair.
Hubby goes back under, and while he’s looking around, he drops the knife. He’s able to retrieve it (and it’s not credible; that knife was dropping pretty fast), but he’s running out of air, and he panics, shooting up to the surface.... And he bashes his head into the propeller shaft.
Meanwhile, back on the surface.... Well, it goes about how you’d expect. They manage to get the swimsuit rope looped around the rail, and Zach tries climbing it, but he’s too heavy, and he goes right back into the water. And then Our Heroes... abandon this plan altogether! Morons. Now Zach notices — for the first time — that panel in the side of the hull. Dummy doofus morons! But we’ve got more pressing business: Hubby surfaces, with a cracked skull. One down, five to go, I suspect.
We still have forty-five minutes to go. Agony! A-gon-y-y-y-y-y!!!
Well, Zach has had enough. He gets the knife from Hubby and starts trying to jab it into the panel. Your movie is in trouble when you want your audience to yell “Good idea!” but instead they yell, “About time you figured that out, ya dunce!” But N-O-O-O! Dan doesn’t want his widdle boat scratched, and he fights Zach for the knife. In the process, oh no, Zach gets stabbed. While everyone reels back in shock, Zach pulls out the knife and drops it. Wimp. You didn’t see Hubby drop the knife, even after cracking his skull, going into shock, and probably sustaining brain damage.
So now Zach’s bleeding badly. They can’t use that makeshift rope anymore, since they gotta use it to try and bandage Zach. He’s getting blood in the water, and here we go again, Barbie starts whining and whimpering, worried the blood will attract sharks. The audience should be so lucky, girl. She panics and starts swimming away. And now the baby starts crying. Yeah, when in doubt, try and press every emotional button. This movie’s making a cynic out of me, fast.
Other gal notices that Barbie has disappeared. (This bit is in real time, and Barbie was in the group less than a minute ago.) Dan-o goes looking for her, to find her dead body about twenty yards away. Yes, she swam away then drowned in about a minute’s time, and no one noticed. Uh huh. There are some “artsy” shots of Michelle’s body sinking into the sea, as the music tries to get all emotional and stuff. Well, I was emotional all right. I was near to crying with relief; at least we don’t have to listen to this trull’s whining anymore. Oh, Lordy, the movie has Dan come up empty handed, then goes into slo-mo, to show us what a great tragedy this is.
Now it’s Zach’s turn. He has a long, drawn-out death scene, which stirs up feelings I haven’t had in a long time. Seriously. The last time I had to throw up several times in a row was about twelve years ago. Other Gal gives a little bit of Generic No-Don’t-Die material, and Zach departs this Earth for a better place... The Land of Mediocre Movies. [Future Brad: in a minute, Other Gal will start crying, revealing she regrets never having told Zach she loves him. Great. There’ve been other cliches I haven’t bothered to point out, but this is the most obvious one.]
Hubby swims up to Dan-o and clops him with a right cross, basically calling Dan an idiotic screw-up who cares more about his precious yacht than he does about his friends’ lives. Amy tries to calm Hubby down, but Hubby accuses her of taking Dan’s side. All things considered, I can’t say I blame him. But then he accuses her of still carrying a torch for Dan (it’s implied Amy and Dan were a couple way back when). Hubby, you bumped your head harder than it looked. And speaking of which, it’s clear that Hubby has suffered a life-threatening head injury. And he’s healthy enough to swim on his own and get a pretty good punch in?
Ah, but the best is yet to come. Dan-o starts muttering, “Most likely to succeed.” He says he was named Most Likely to Succeed in his school yearbook. Good one, Danny Boy, tell me another. (Snicker) That’s when he lays down the biggest howler this movie has to offer. He’s not a millionaire investment banker; he’s an errand boy. The yacht belongs to his boss; Dan stole it to impress his friends. Would you excuse me for a moment? (Clink clink whirr click click hmmmmm clank clank ka-snick) Ah, that’s better. I’ve just fitted my head with the new BS Detector Big-Enough-To-Handle-Michael-Moore Edition.
Even if I did buy all of this, the tone of the scene makes the whole thing just reek. Dan is basically guilty of grand theft (and probably several nautical infractions), and he just graduated to manslaughter — and may have to face more than one count. But it’s clear we’re supposed to feel sorry for this a$$hole. After a half-dozen jump cuts of Dan makin’ crocodile tears, we go straight to another howler. They let go of Zach’s body and let it sink... and they don’t take the makeshift rope off of him! Did any of these people take an IQ test when they were younger? I’d love to see the results. The scene ends with a shot of the rope sinking into the deep, the torn flag prominent. Oooooh, how profound!
Time to get another one of Our Zeroes outta here. Not Hubby, though he’s fading fast. No, it’s Other Gal’s time to go. She says she’s gonna take a little swim and try to make it to shore. At first, I thought she was basically committing suicide, but everything here indicates that she really is trying to swim to shore. Uh, Other Gal, never mind how far it is. How’s about you point to the shore? Where is it? Amazingly, Amy tells her, “You’re gonna make it,” and it sounds like she means it. Er, uh, okay. So Other Gal swims off to her fate. And with that, she’s out of the picture. And I take an aspirin. [Future Brad: this half-suicide, half escape attempt by Other Gal will look even dumber later on; we’ll learn that she would have survived if she had stayed with that damned boat!] I’ll give this movie one small bit of credit. The lighting continuity, so far as I can tell, has been pretty good, moving from noon to afternoon, and now to sunset.
After a bit where Sarah starts crying again (gotta get them heart-tugging moments in, yes sir-ree!), Amy notices for the first time that square panel. She tells Dan she’s gonna try and find the knife. Remember how I said Amy was the only one who hadn’t acted like an idiot? Forget it. Dan brings up the obvious: God only knows how far they’ve drifted since dropping the knife. Shock of shocks, Cap’n Dan just said something intelligent! Whoops, never mind. He just volunteered to look for the knife, saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll find it.” Okay, he’s an idjit, all’s right with the world. (It’s never mentioned, but we never see the ocean floor here. It must be hundreds — or thousands — of feet deep here. Good luck, Dan-o.)
There are some more shots of Sarah crying (enough already!), then we see that it is dusk. Hubby tells Amy, “I feel tired.” Hey, I think that’s a signal. We have a Big Emotional Moment coming up! Just in case we don’t get it, the filmmakers show some slo-mo shots of raindrops hitting the water. As the rain starts to pick up, Hubby starts slipping away. Amazingly, Amy does not sing “Frere Jacques.” Then Amy starts sobbing loudly, so we’ll know Hubby is dead and we’re supposed to be all sad and stuff.
Meanwhile, Dan-o continues to search for the knife. Give it up, Cap’n.
Now it’s night, and the rain’s comin’ down hard. Amy is cradling Hubby’s dead body, singing “Frere Jacques.” Damn! I thought she wasn’t gonna do that! She then overacts her saying-goodbye scene and lets her better half’s corpse sink beneath the waves.(8)
We still have another 15 minutes to go. End already, movie! (9)
Dan-o finally gives up and swims back to the boat, with Amy’s help (in a rare nod to reality, Dan’s thoroughly exhausted). The storm is in full swing now. I read that this movie was shot off the coast of Malta, but it looks like at least some of it was done on a set somewhere; the night scenes look like they were done on a set. If they were done on location as well, then Hans Horn is really incompetent. Or his cinematographer screwed up, and Horn didn’t have the sense or courage to hire someone else. (10)
Dan starts freaking out, yelling “It should’ve been me!” and banging the diver’s mask against the hull. Well, he’s right, but that doesn’t prevent this from going into the cliche heap. Oh, looky, he broke the mask; the faceplate came out of the rubber housing and cut his hand. Wait a minute, do you see what I see? Gasp! He can use that broken mask as a makeshift knife now! Something tells me that a plastic diver’s mask would NOT work as a cutting tool. The edges of the mask would more likely be blunt, again precisely to prevent what happens here, namely Dan-o cutting his hand. But let’s not nitpick, okay? We’re finally coming to the end.
So, Dan-o goes to the panel and wedges the faceplate into the crack between panel and hull. He then gets Amy to climb up, keeping his hands around the mask so she won’t cut her foot when climbing up. Imagine how awkward this would be, climbing up on this thing in the middle of a storm. But it seems to work here. Yeah, right. Remember what I said about diver’s masks? That faceplate should just pop out of the crack and send Amy tumbling back into the water, or it should break, with similar results. Add to that, Cap’n Dan cut his hand by just banging the mask around; now Amy is climbing up and putting her full weight on his hands as he holds them around the mask. It seems pretty likely Dan-o would get his fingers cut off this way. But hey, nothing we’ve seen before is credible, so why should this be any different?
And at long last, Amy hauls her ass up onto the boat. Yippee. Hooray. Way to go. The music is supposed to be all emotional, but like the score throughout the rest of the movie, it feels half-hearted. One suspects the composer may have realized this movie wasn’t going to go anywhere, and he walked through this score, going by the numbers. (11) Amy finally hits the button that opens up the panel (some sort of storage compartment, I think, or maybe it’s — gasp — the ladder; hard to tell), so Dan-o can climb up, then she goes to check on the baby. There were two things I noticed here. First, Amy is in a bra and panties. The only possible reason for this is that the actress who played her had a no-nudity clause in her contract. They should’ve found someone willing to disrobe, because this makes no sense. Everyone else got naked to make that rope; even Barbie took off her string bikini to supply material! So why does Amy get to keep her skivvies on?! And no, this wouldn’t be a gratuitous nude scene; the filmmakers could say they were just being consistent, and they would be right (all of the men and Barbie bared their asses for the camera, and at least two of them clearly weren’t using doubles). There’s a much bigger problem, though. The DVD player’s timer reads 79 minutes, and this movie runs a total of 94 minutes. Good Lord, movie, end already!!! I’m close to clawing my own eyes out! I had a horrifying flashback to when I realized that the Big Climactic Scene in High Tension wasn’t a Big Climactic Scene at all, then had the pleasure of watching what had turned out to be a tense little slasher pic commit hara-kiri before my eyes in its last ten minutes. Well, don’t worry. We don’t learn that Amy went psycho and killed everyone else. But I’ll be brutally honest: that revelation would actually be better than what we DO get.
Amy goes into the cabin and tries to calm Sarah down. There’s a dissolve here, suggesting that Amy spent some time doing this. Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cap’n Dan was the one who went psycho. After all, his cowardice and stupidity led indirectly to three deaths, and he was directly responsible for a fourth. It wouldn’t be too far out of character for him to want to get rid of the last two surviving witnesses. But no, Amy gets up, goes out looking for him. And Dan is floating some distance away from the boat, not even attempting to get back.
The music kicks in, telling us this is supposed to be a suspenseful scene. Maybe it would be, if this clod were worth caring about. Amy tries to get a life ring out to him, but no go. We get yet another quick flashback to Amy’s dad’s death, so everyone will know what’s supposed to be going on here. Oooh, oooh, I get it! Amy is now going to conquer her fear of the water, jump in and risk her life to save Dan, showing him mercy! See, she’s going to conquer her Great Fear From the Past, and she’ll prove her true heroism! The writers were paying attention in that screenwriter’s workshop, weren’t they.
Just a few teensy problems here. When you’re in the middle of a storm miles from shore, fear of the water is a normal, healthy attitude to take! Strike One! Second, we know nothing about Amy’s life before this, what she does for a living (if she’s not a stay-at-home mom), but it’s a safe bet she’s no trained rescuer. Dan is twice her size. She won’t be able to force him to come back to the boat. If he really wants to die, he’s gonna die (and he could’ve kicked off already, but the filmmakers wanted to give Amy her big heroic moment). Steeeerike TWO!!! Here comes the capper. Amy doesn’t bother to tie a rope around her waist and tether herself to the boat, or take any other sort of precautions. She just jumps right in. So, what’s the problem here? Two words: The. Baby. Steeeeeerike THREE!!! Yer OUT!!! That’s right, filmmakers, you wrote in that Amy has an infant child on board, so if she gets herself killed, she’ll be dooming the kid, too! This isn’t heroic, it’s stupid; in my opinion, it’s also immoral. The guy is determined to kill himself, and it’s doubtful you can help him. So you do right by the one completely innocent member of the cast. But Amy doesn’t do that. Her actions are nearly as irresponsible as Dan’s have been.
Of course, this wouldn’t matter if Amy didn’t have a child. If it were just her neck she was risking, it would be an honest (if cliched) heroic moment. But the writers just had to put in an infant to try and up the emotional ante. Stupid writers. Stupid movie.
There are a few more “artsy” shots of Amy going underwater to try and haul Dan up to the surface (he’s gone under offscreen), intercut with more flashbacks, because we didn’t get it the first four or five times they played (and those “artsy” shots looked a LOT like the shots in Open Water which I’ll describe in footnote 10). They tried to edit around this, but I picked up on the fact that these flashbacks, where the father drowns, are in water that’s maybe three or four feet deep. Sigh. Plenty of incompetence to go around, I see. And at long last, we....
Cut to the next morning. A fishing boat comes upon the yacht, and its captain yells “Ahoy!” It doesn’t look like anyone’s there. Inside the cabin, the baby is still crying (if you think this is just an incredibly cheap and low-down way to try and wring some emotion out of the audience, well, you’re probably right). We go to a wide shot and fade to white. The end.
No, wait! That’s not the end. We then go back to the boat to see Amy standing there. Dan lies prone on the deck; we can’t tell whether he’s alive or dead. Close-up on Amy’s face, which is all sad and exhausted and stuff. And cut to black, and we go to the final credits. And wouldn’t ya know it, part of the music during the final credits is a music box playing “Frere Jacques.”
We’re supposed to feel sad, I guess, that Amy and Sarah are (presumably) the only ones left alive. But to feel sad, you have to give a rat’s ass about the characters. I didn’t, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
Afterthoughts (Warning — pretentious film analysis ahead)
The minute this thing ended, I thought, I GOTTA write a review on this monstrosity. As I viewed it for the second time, running between the living room and the spare room to type up my notes, I had serious second thoughts. This wasn’t a fun movie to watch. I checked my watch often, got pissed off at the idiocy on screen regularly, and felt pretty foolish myself for renting this damn thing. It’s not a good-bad movie; it’s just plain old bad. But I couldn’t help noticing the parallels between this and Open Water, and the two could be made into a film school course. Open Water belongs in the “do” column, and Adrift in the “don’t.” Normally, a comparison would be unfair, but here it’s deserved; here, we don’t have to wonder what a movie like this would look like if done right: we have an example to go by.
Final warning. As a fan of The Blair Witch Project, I’m a little chagrined to admit that Open Water is better. And it’s scary as hell. The story of the film’s making is almost as good as the film itself: husband-and-wife team Chris Kentis and Laura Lau raised the $130,000 budget themselves, picked up a couple of hi-def video cameras, and hopped down to the Bahamas every weekend with actors Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis for two years. The crew? Kentis and Lau. That’s it. Most of the rest of the credits were for people hired for a couple of days from time to time, and for sound mixing. Lionsgate bought the movie for $2.5 million, and Open Water ended up taking $30 mil at the box office. Not Spider-Man numbers, to be sure, but considering the budget, subject matter, and obscurity of this film, it’s a major success, a dream come true for any indie filmmaker.
To compare it with Adrift, I’m gonna give away just about every damn thing that happens in Open Water. If you haven’t seen that movie, READ NO FURTHER! Okay, you got no one to blame but yourself if it’s spoiled for ya.
First off, here are the footnotes:
(1) My one real hang-up with Open Water may be its beginning, which I thought went on too long. Still, it accomplishes a lot more than Adrift did. OW quickly establishes its leads, Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel (Daniel Travis), as a harried couple in need of a vacation (the movie’s one really clunky line says this outright, even though the audience can figure it out from a funny ain’t-it-the-truth gag where they talk to each other on their cell phones, right up until they’re right next to each other). We see them trying to enjoy themselves on their vacation in the Bahamas (a good, if somewhat obvious, bit of foreshadowing has Daniel sticking his head in the mouth of a fiberglass shark). Then we get what might be an incredibly gratuitous nude scene from Ryan, but it goes down easy for two reasons. First, Ryan and Travis act out the scene very casually, giving the impression that Susan sleeps in the buff regularly; this is aided by a funny touch added to the scene: Susan is fully naked, but she and Daniel both have sunburn cream on their faces. Second, Daniel tries to get intimate, and Susan starts to go along with it, but she shuts down abruptly. Maybe it’s not the best way to indicate this relationship is in trouble, but it works. (Okay, there’s a third reason I didn’t mind this scene. Deep sigh. Blanchard Ryan is very beautiful.) While the first 20 minutes of Open Water are a bit tedious, they do give us some little tidbits about our leads, painting them as human beings.
(2) You’ve probably guessed that I’m a lot more taken with Blanchard Ryan than I was with any of the women here. She’s much more attractive, but she’s also more accessible. You don’t get the feeling that Susan is a plastic doll; she looks and acts like someone you could meet in your neighborhood. (There was a robotic feel to all of the women, even Amy, in Adrift.)
(3) Open Water used a real-life disappearance as the beginning of its story. While Chris Kentis speculated on what the couple would do after being left behind, he kept the details on why they were left behind pretty close to reality: the crew of the diving boat the couple were on made a mistake in the head count and didn’t realize two of their number were missing. In OW, the crew of the diving boat is shown to be both competent and conscientious. The mistake they make is worthy of a lawsuit, but it’s an honest, simple (and frighteningly believable) mistake: rather than conduct a proper roll call, one of the guides opts for a simple head count. Later, a couple of the divers switch up in a way that screws up the count, and the guide is distracted at just the wrong time. The film also shows that this crew isn’t a bunch of jerks or cowards. When the dive boat’s captain finds Susan and Daniel’s ID’s on the boat — a day later — he runs to the authorities and sends out the alarm (this also reflects the real-life case). But it’s much too late. The film also cuts back from Susan and David to the island a couple of times, emphasizing that no one has any clue these two are missing. Maybe Kentis held on these island life scenes a bit too long, but it’s still disturbing.
(4) I read one wag’s review, in which he wondered what the pitch for Adrift must be: “It’s like Open Water but without sharks!” OW had sharks. Lots of sharks. Lots of REAL sharks. Ryan and Travis had to get in the water with live sharks more than once. I don’t care if they had chain mail under their wetsuits; they’re still braver than I am. But once you saw the first shark fin, the threat was always there. Maybe this is a minor problem with the film: you knew the sharks weren’t going to attack just yet. If they did, Susan and Daniel would make like Susan Backlinie for two minutes, then the movie would be over. But seeing those sharks come in (even if only out of curiosity) and dart away in a realistic fashion should be enough to scare the willies out of most filmgoers. The movie had several moments where we just lingered over shots of the ocean, but it didn’t feel like filler to me. The explanation here seems pretty obvious: Chris Kentis is a better director than Hans Horn.
(5) When Susan and Daniel first realize they’ve been left behind, they do not panic, or even lose their tempers, for quite a while. It’s a much more realistic portrayal of people realizing, bit by bit, that they’re in serious trouble, and even then they try to keep their cool. The film is two-thirds over before they really get frazzled. It’s much more frightening to see people who are established as being fairly level-headed start to cry, yell, etc.
(6) Near the end of the film, Daniel starts saying the Lord’s Prayer. How is this different from Adrift? By this point, both of our leads are exhausted and scared to death. It’s believable. We never get any indication that Susan or Daniel are particularly religious, but you know the saying about atheists and foxholes.
(7) Susan and Daniel never go into any sort of debates over anything but the fix they’re in. They go back and forth several times, trying to figure out what — if anything — they can do, and they try to remember those survival-at-sea shows they saw on The Discovery Channel for pointers. The only time they get into a real argument is at the two-thirds point. Daniel finally screams in fury over the situation, joking that “The best part is that we paid to do this!!” Both of them start finger-pointing at each other (another great line: Susan says she never wanted to come out here: “I wanted to go skiing!”) and ripping one another apart. Yeah, this relationship was on life support before they came out here; now they’re getting it out in the open. The big reason this works, I think, is because Susan and Daniel’s fight is much more believable than some half-hearted religious debate. And there’s a good reason for the anger and blaming one another: as long as they keep doing this, they won’t have to face the fact that they are utterly screwed. More on this in a bit.
(8) Here come da spoilers. Shortly after the one-hour, Daniel is attacked by one of the sharks. Susan manages to get a makeshift bandage around his bleeding leg. Later on (in a scene I’ll get into in footnote 10), Daniel is attacked again. The following morning, we see Susan cradling his head, and we learn that Daniel died during the night. Susan fights back tears, kisses his cheek, and quietly lets him go. Less is more, Hans Horn. Less is more.
(9) Once again, OW had very little filler after the first 20 minutes. It keeps its running time down to 79 minutes, not overstaying its welcome. Would that more Hollywood films could do this.
(10) Here’s the most obvious difference between OW and Adrift. Open Water didn’t have the money to stage a big storm scene. So, they turned the low budget into an asset. They opted to give the audience a black screen, with occasional lightning flashes showing clouds, water, Susan and Daniel, a shark swimming by, etc. Then they relied entirely on the sound: the thunder and wind and rain, added to Susan and Daniel’s crying and panicked dialogue (including the Lord’s Prayer mentioned above), then Daniel yelping in pain (the second shark attack, which will eventually prove fatal). When I first saw this scene, I literally thought I was going to have a heart attack. The scene lasts all of two minutes, and it’s a long two minutes; it is brutal. Horror directors, take note: this is how you scare the living hell out of an audience.
(11) The one name in Open Water that wasn’t new to me was its composer, Graeme Revell. Revell has written some very good scores, and a few pretty bad ones. In his defense, the movies he wrote bad scores for were pretty lame on their own. He’s not quite on a tier with, say, Hans Zimmer, but he’s more than respectable enough. Either Lionsgate ponied up some money for a name composer, or (more likely) Kentis showed Revell the film and Revell liked it enough to work for less than his usual pay. The score is very simple and spare, usually pretty low-key and eerie. One suspects Revell didn’t work too long on this one, nor did he need to. His score more than got the job done. He then peppered it with children singing what sound like Polynesian hymns. It doesn’t fit the location, but it works quiet well.
There are some other key points where Open Water gets it right and Adrift completely screws it up. First is the casting. I’ve already talked about Blanchard Ryan, now let’s mention Daniel Travis. He’s a handsome guy, but he’ll never compete with an in-his-prime Paul Newman. He looks like a regular guy. Another thing. When Open Water was made, Blanchard Ryan was 37 years old. No word on Daniel Travis’s date of birth, but he looks to be about the same age. You got a hint of maturity in these two. It’s been a long time since they got wasted with friends on the weekends (if they ever did). Not so with the cast of Adrift. First off, they all look like twentysomethings. Second, the women look just a little too perfect, just a little too prepped. They look like failed attempts at supermodels, and you see little if any personalities to them. The men? Pure beefcake, what Jerry Seinfeld would call “mimboes.” There’s one exception to this. Richard Speight, Jr., the guy who plays Hubby, doesn’t look like a wannabe bodybuilder, and he is interestingly awkward (for one thing, his chin would put Jay Leno to shame). I checked him on the IMDb, and I found at least one impressive credit in his résumé: he had a regular part in the miniseries “Band of Brothers.” Richard, this is a big comedown for you. For what it’s worth, he gives the only performance that comes within shouting distance of decent. Of course, his character has little to do, and little to make him interesting, and that can be laid partly at Speight’s door, as he was one of the four writers on this thing.
The other thing about OW is that it has a point to it. When one thinks about it, there’s very little plot. Couple gets stranded, couple is scared to death, couple is attacked by shark, couple is never heard from again. But it holds up for its hour and 19 by planting a sense of dread in the audience’s mind. The feeling running through the film is, it doesn’t matter what these people do. They’re at the mercy of the elements. If someone doesn’t realize they’re missing, they’re dead. And no one realizes this until it’s too late. Any action they take is comically pathetic, and it doesn’t help them at all.
The film ends with Susan watching Daniel’s body get pulled down by a shark. She looks under the water and sees that there are literally dozens of sharks surrounding her. They’re not toying anymore; in a few minutes, they’re going to come in and start feeding. So Susan takes control for the first and only time in the film. She takes off her air tank (which was holding her up all this time), submerges, and drowns herself, choosing to commit suicide rather than let the sharks kill her. I doubt that Chris Kentis wanted to make a Really Big Statement when he was writing this film. More likely, his first goal was to write a movie that could be made for the budget he had, and that would scare the crap out of the audience. But I’m sure an underlying theme crept through his head once or twice: We have far less control over our destiny than we’d like to admit. The nice thing is, the movie holds up under that kind of analysis. You can sit back and take it at face value, or you can give this interpretation; either way, it works. That’s a sign you have a helluva good movie on your hands.
What’s the Really Big Statement of Adrift? Don’t be a complete, utter, effing idiot if you’re on a yacht miles from shore. How profound.
That's the biggest difference between Open Water and Adrift. Open Water has no idiots in its small cast. People make mistakes, and they make dumb moves every now and then (the biggest one, obviously, being the botched head count). But how many moments have the viewer wondering what planet these people are from? Zero.
Adrift is chock full of them. Let’s recap the Idiot Moments, shall we? Keep the plus signs and asterisks in mind:
1. Dan-o jumps in with Amy, not bothering to put out a ladder. No one else thinks of putting up a ladder. * +
2. Dan-o tries using a child’s inflatable toy dolphin as a makeshift booster to get himself up to the deck.
3. No one thinks of, say, having one of the women get up on one of the men’s shoulders, possibly giving her enough height to get on the boat. * +
4. No one notices that obvious panel on the side of the boat. * +
5. Zach literally throws away a potential lifeline (the cell phone, malfunctioning or not).
6. No one thinks to use Zach’s coat as a makeshift rope. * +
7. Hubby goes underwater to check the underside of the boat at the one time when no one will be checking to make sure he’s okay.
8. When they tie their swimsuits together, Our Zeroes have one of the two heaviest members of their party, not the lightest, try to climb up. * +
9. After this fails, they abandon the idea altogether. * +
10. When Zach tries to put the knife in the hull, Dan-o is more concerned about damaging his boss’s boat than he is about his own life, or anyone else’s; he fights with Zach, accidentally giving him a fatal wound. *
11. When Other Gal decides to try and swim for shore, no one tries to talk her out of it. Assuming it’s not a suicide play, Amy doesn’t give her life jacket to Other Gal, which might give Other Gal a faint chance at making it.
12. Dan continues to look for the knife, though it’s obvious he’s wasting time and winding himself in the process.
13. Amy doesn’t secure herself to the boat before she goes after Dan.
Keep in mind that I thought of these off the top of my head five days after returning the DVD to the store. Now, the plus signs indicate moments where everyone is an idiot: no one uses their heads. And the asterisks are points where the movie depends on its characters acting like fools. There are at least six points in the movie where the whole thing would be over in two scenes if ONE of these dolts had a lick of sense.
Having worked in a mental hospital once, I can say that there are severely retarded mental patients with more on the ball than all the characters in this movie combined.
Yeah, I gushed over Open Water, and maybe I gave it too much credit. It’s not the end-all and be-all of great movies, and not even great thrillers. But it looks like Citizen Kane when compared to Adrift.
There’s one more thing worth mentioning. I watched the first five minutes of Adrift’s making-of featurette. Hans Horn states that he first got the idea for this movie in 2001, after his wife told him of the “actual events” that supposedly inspired it. But what struck me was the fact that this movie neared completion in July 2005, nearly a year after Open Water was released. The similarities between the two films may well not be a coincidence.
And that would mean that Lionsgate took a shameless rip-off and gave it credibility by lumping it in with the original film.
It bears repeatin’: Lionsgate, you bastards. |
Edited by - BradH812 on 03/15/2007 9:18:38 PM
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Altair IV
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Japan
110 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2007 : 08:08:18 AM
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My god. It's a perfect example of an Idiot Picture™.
I love your reviews Brad. Makes me feel like I actually watched the movie (but without all the pain). Please keep 'em coming. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2007 : 3:43:39 PM
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Somehow I missed seeing this review when you put it up. It was worth waiting for anyway!
You can add another thing to the idiotcies in this picture:
Why didn't "Captain" Dan think to DROP THE ANCHOR when they decided to go swiming so the boat would stay put? Oh yeah, because then they could have climbed up the chain and then the movie would be over.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
Edited by - Greenhornet on 03/23/2007 3:47:09 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2007 : 7:05:39 PM
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Thanks, Greenhornet. Looks like I had my own Idiot Moment, not remembering boats are supposed to have anchors. Glad you did; now we can bring that tally up to 14.
And thanks to you, too, Altair, for the complement. Work may be slowing down, or this may be the calm before the storm. If it's the former, I'll be writing again soon. And yes, you're right; this movie is a textbook example of an Idiot Picture. |
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Adrift ("Open Water 2"... note the quotes)
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