Into the Blue is a 2005 action film about a group of divers who find themselves in deep trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane.
Tales from the open sea tend to be of a limited catch, mostly shipwrecks and monsters in the dark. You got your Jaws your Titanic your Leviathan your Open Water. Heaps more. And with every good pirate or castaway movie there’s always a silly shark movie to give it counter. A lesser known favorite of mine has always been the 1977 thriller The Deep, starring Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset, which opened two years after Jaws yet certainly rode a bit of the wave that toothy terror brought ashore.
That story follows a young couple in Bermuda who go diving and come upon an old shipwreck and some possible treasure, teaming up with an old local (played by Robert Shaw, who also starred in Jaws), which soon attracts the attention of a drug lord. A tense underwater chiller that doesn’t at all stick to the formula the shark movie set, it’s a clever and well-written film that is good to look at as well as plenty good fun.
In 2005, director John Stockwell took to the waters in a sort of reboot-ish way if that movie, though not officially, writer Matt Johnson‘s Bahama-set adventure close enough to be considered a loose adaptation at least. Either way, when it was released, I was onboard, so to speak, thinking it might have some of the same splashy appeal. It doesn’t, but isn’t bad enough to toss out as chum.
One of the things that garnered great interest in The Deep was of course, the beautiful Bisset swimming underwater in only a thin t-shirt and a skimpy bikini bottom. It was sex appeal of the highest order and worked just enough to spark interest without being what the movie is about.
That was 1977. Skip ahead to 2005 and the filmmakers miss the point and take the notion of a lovely woman exploring the ocean depths to a whole new degree of salaciousness, framing the scantily clad bodies of star Jessica Alba and co-star Ashley Scott as if they were making a Girls Gone Wild video, sans nudity. It’s tempting to just let it be that for a bit, sort of accepting the fact that this is apparently half the movie’s goal and enjoy the show, but it just gets distracting when there’s a fairly decent story working to get noticed. Throw in copious amounts of equally underdressed, finely-toned men in the mix, and it’s an MTV beach drama instead of a genuinely compelling film. Thankfully, that all only lasts until the third act when things shift to action.
The story goes like this: Down on his luck diver Jared Cole (Paul Walker) and longtime girlfriend Samantha Nicholson (Alba) are living a quaint life on the beach, she a theme park employee and he doing odds and ends with various underwater jobs. He dreams of being a treasure hunter but doesn’t have the money to make it happen, refusing to work for local bigshot Derek Bates (Josh Brolin), a successful salvage operator with a number of significant finds that have made him wealthy. Or was it something else?
One day, Jared’s old pal Bryce Dunn (Scott Caan) comes to the islands, he a NYC lawyer who just defended a rich client and is being lent his luxury beach house as payment, including the small yacht. He’s also brought along his new girlfriend, a woman he just met, named Amanda (Scott), a party girl looking for a god time. She gets it, and more. The four head out to open waters and take a dive, the group soon coming upon some interesting bits under the sand, trinkets that appear to be from an ancient pirate ship. They estimate, if authenticated, the find is worth a fortune.
Thing is, they also happen upon a downed prop plane, one we’ve seen before in the opening set piece, discovering a dead crew and a cargo full of cocaine. Jared and Sam want nothing to do with the drugs, but behind their backs, Amanda and Bryce nab a few bricks and try to sell them in hopes of getting money to fund the recovery of the ship. This does not go well.
Film styles change and the more gritty authenticity of 70s cinema have evolved into a more stylized hyper-realism that rarely feels true, even if often very entertaining. Into The Blue is part and parcel of a breed of film born in the Fast and Furious era, a franchise made popular by a sense of extreme – and also starring Walker. However, replacing cars with boats doesn’t quite work (though I don’t think that was intended) and the convoluted plot mixing treasure, drugs, romance, corruption, betrayal, and sharks gets a little murky when it relies too much on flash than story.
What’s best is Walker, who really could have branched out more into deeper action and even drama, holding this whole movie above water for most of the time. He’s got terrific intensity and is entirely believable as a guy completely stretched to the limit, juggling what he can to keep himself and Sam alive. There’s a few spectacular moments that only a guy like Walker could sell that proved he was absolutely cut to be in this business. He makes you want to follow him.
Brolin is also good fun, maybe a little easy to see where he takes Bates, but doing everything he can to make his screen time matter. He’s got nowhere to really go with it, funneled from his introduction into the prefab mold we all knew was coming, but geesh, he’s so darned entertaining to watch. Like most everyone in the story though, we have no idea what really motivates him or get any sense of depth beyond the immediate impression.
What’s worst is Caan, who is purposefully cast as the braggadocious, foolhardy friend, but is so transparently awful, he’s a cartoon character, simply impossible to take seriously or even love to hate. He utterly ruins whole sections of the story.
Many took shots at Alba, as was the case for nearly everything she starred in, here earning a Golden Raspberry nomination for worst performance in a film, but honestly, isn’t that bad. Sure, she’s underused dramatically, the filmmakers far more interested in her body than her words, but the same might be said of Walker, who is paraded around half naked as much as her. I guess that proves the point. Made today, Alba’s character would be written entirely different.
Into The Blue didn’t do so well at the box office, coming up short of its budget as audiences rejected the whole affair. It’s really better on the small screen, a good late night flick on the sofa than one for the theaters, the years actually making it more entertaining given the fate of its star and the usual weight of nostalgia. If that’s an itch you’re looking to scratch, then don’t hesitate, but by all means, when you come ashore, head back out and make sure you see The Deep next.