Studio: Saban Films
Director: Christian Sesma
Writer: Chad Law, Josh Ridgway
Producer: Simon Williams, Daemon Hillin
Stars: Callum McGowan, Scout Taylor Compton, Jon Seda, Stuart Townsend, Richard Dreyfuss
Review Score:
Summary:
Haunted by the memory of her father’s grisly death, a traumatized woman becomes a pawn for pirates when she’s forced to dive for sunken cargo in shark-infested waters.
Review:
Obviously, the lure of “Into the Deep” is that it’s a shark movie that includes a small role played by Richard Dreyfuss, who famously featured in the mother of all shark movies. Less obvious is how many viewers are expected to believe his is a prestige part in a major film, because neither of those adjectives are accurate.
Let’s face facts on the condition of the Oscar winner’s late-stage career. Prior to “Into the Deep’s” release, Dreyfuss most recently made news not for any acting achievement, but for being an angry old man yelling at a cloud during an off-the-rails “Jaws” Q&A in 2024. They say there’s no such thing as bad press, except when you make “distressing and offensive” remarks that the host venue’s executive director has to apologize for on your behalf.
What’s Richard Dreyfuss doing in a low-budget fin flick in the first place? It probably has something to do with returning director Christian Sesma, with whom Dreyfuss previously teamed on 2021’s “Every Last One of Them,” another DTV dud that asks the question, if a B-movie bomb detonates on home video and there’s nobody there to watch it, does it make a sound?
According to Sesma’s IMDb bio, he and Dreyfuss made a second movie in 2021 titled “Abandonment,” although there hasn’t been a peep about it since some industry articles in 2023 claimed the missing movie would hit theaters that year. Clicking on any of the pages for the film’s official website currently returns only 404 errors, so who knows what happened with that one.
At least “Into the Deep” found its way into the wild, almost certainly on the strength of being able to say, “We have Richard Dreyfuss in another shark movie!” Never mind that he mostly appears in short flashbacks, which we know take place in a different year because they’re poorly color-timed to look like the overlit footage was flooded with milk. Dreyfuss has minimal interactions with Scout Taylor Compton’s lead character in other quick clips and over the phone. But if you’re expecting him to do anything more active than doling out dialogue while leaning on a railing, an umbrella, or simply sitting in a chair, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
You’ll also need to look elsewhere if you want exciting thrills, original characters, a suspenseful story, or anything else you’d ordinarily expect from action entertainment. “Into the Deep” can be called boringly bland at best and a bucket of chum at worst. It wouldn’t matter if you made the most out of your time by simultaneously being on your phone, because the film practically narrates what’s happening onscreen with lame lines like, “She is out on the ocean, in a boat, and about to do some diving.” As long as you’re listening, your eyes can close comfortably and you’ll never miss a beat.
Not that there is much to miss. “Into the Deep” operates on boilerplate drama about an ocean-loving woman who’s haunted by the memory of a shark eating her father. Ready to face her fears thanks to years of her marine biologist grandfather’s guidance, she and her new husband embark on a diving expedition to search for sunken treasure. In addition to sharks, they encounter more bad luck when their boat gets boarded by gun-toting pirates determined to dredge up a dropped drug shipment. Routine good guys vs. bad guys stuff ensues.
If sharks sinking their teeth into people is what you want from “Into the Deep,” and why wouldn’t it be, they do manage to mangle seven victims by my count. Or maybe they’re killed by crimson clouds billowing underwater. Amid all the frantic flailing, splashing, and spotty CGI, it’s often hard to tell exactly what’s going on.
The only person who appears to have any fun with “Into the Deep,” and that includes anyone in the audience, is Jon Seda as a pirate who likes pointing his gun in a threatening manner so much, he does it in every other scene. The scenes in between, he has one of his interchangeable henchmen do it for him. Recognizing he's caught in a clunker, Seda seemingly says, “eff it,” and salts his slice of the ham with a greasy ponytail on top of his head and a chewy cigar in his mouth. I’m a little surprised he didn’t insist on a skull-and-crossbones eyepatch, too.
“Into the Deep” delivers the distinct artistic vision you’d expect of a movie made by 10 production companies and 19 executive producers, whose money apparently went mostly toward hiring midlevel names and renting hotel rooms for the cast and crew to enjoy an island getaway while filming. “Into the Deep” then ends with nearly five uninterrupted minutes of Richard Dreyfuss lecturing viewers about shark conservation from cue cards it looks like he’s reading for the first time, including when he says, “Hi, I’m Richard Dreyfuss.” The best part of this bit comes from the distracting silhouettes visible in a frosted window behind him as people pop by to see what’s going on since no one locked down the room before rolling. I guess nobody dared to ask Dreyfuss for a second take. Given the stale script and drab ocean location the film has as its starting points, it’s hard to imagine a second take of anything making “Into the Deep” appreciably better anyway.
Review Score: 35
If a B-movie bomb detonates on home video and there’s nobody there to watch it, does it make a sound?