Into the Deep, 2025.
Directed by Christian Sesma.
Starring Scout Taylor-Compton, Richard Dreyfuss, Stuart Townsend, Jon Seda, AnnaMaria Demara, Tom O’Connell, Callum McGowan, Lorena Sarria, Ron Smoorenburg, Tofan Pirani, Quinn P Hensley, and Maverick Kang Jr.
SYNOPSIS:
Modern day pirates on the hunt for sunken drugs kidnap a boat of tourists and force them to dive into shark infested waters to retrieve the contraband.
Nothing about director Christian Sesma’s VOD budget shark attack/modern-day pirates thriller Into the Deep is particularly good. Let’s get that out of the way. The ending credits are far more baffling and intriguing than anything within the actual movie, where Richard Dreyfuss delivers a speech about shark conservation. Everything about the speech (from discussing cruelly hunting and murdering them to make soup out of their fins or how an alarming number of types are gradually going extinct) is well laid out and worth preaching about. The question is, what the hell is it doing here in a movie that has no traces whatsoever of that message?
Into the Deep is as generic as they come, with sharks standing in as childhood trauma and fear to face. Now, as an adult, Scout Taylor-Compton’s Cassidy is taking steps toward overcoming general ocean fright by boarding a boat with her boyfriend Gregg (Callum McGowan) on a quest for sunken treasure. Naturally, this is the same body of water where her father was teaching her how to swim before he was “viciously” murdered by a shark (quotations are necessary since nothing about this film is graphic or intense, and the actors mostly look like they are flailing to stay afloat whenever presented with the acting challenge of pretending a shark is dragging them down under.)
Sailing alongside another couple, plans quickly go sideways once some pirates storm the ship. Leader Jordan (Jon Seda, playing the character as a cross between sociopathic and 1980s bike-riding bad boy, mostly to unintentional comedic effect more than terror) and his criminal gang hold everyone hostage, demanding that Cassidy (the smallest of everyone here) uses the shark cage to reach the bottom of the ocean and bring back up several kilos of valuable drugs. Yes, there is more than one kind of treasure here.
While Cassidy attempts that, there are also flashbacks (some going as far back as her being a child) with her survivalist, ocean expert grandfather Seamus (a jittery Richard Dreyfuss who seems incapable of sitting still while delivering wooden dialogue) teaches her everything she needs to know to one day face her fear. Such flashbacks are visually ghastly, with unbelievably washed-out colors.
There isn’t much else to say other than that it is trite and entirely clichéd with questionable acting, aside from one or two displays of ferocity from Scout Taylor-Compton. Whether it’s director Christian Sesma or screenwriters Chad Law and Josh Ridgway, someone (or everyone) failed at ensuring anything about this formulaic genre exercise matched the intent spoonfed during the ending credits. There are no points for an actor showing up during the credits and giving an activist speech inside a film that has nothing to do with activism. That’s not deep; it renders Into the Deep shallow. And that’s without getting into what passes for special effects here.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
