Rating: D
Dir: Phil Volken
Star: Francesca Eastwood, Alexander Wraith, Dani Oliveros, Ta’imua
This opens with an ominous quote from renowned oceanographer, Jacques Cousteau. “When you enter the ocean, you enter the food chain,” says Cousteau, adding pointedly, “and not necessarily at the top.” If only the film which followed was capable of living up to those words. Instead, we get a film more interested in delivering an ecological sermon, because after all – it’s we humans who are the real monsters. Things start off badly, the film intent on speed-running an answer to the question, “How quickly will I want all the characters to get eaten?” We have Emma (Eastwood) and influencer Lani (Oliveros), attending the wedding of their friend in Thailand, when they meet Mandal (Wraith), a former marine biologist now running sustainable shark tours.
He seems kind of an eco-dick, the sort who spouts eye-rolling nonsense like, “People are far more cold-blooded than sharks.” But, hey, he gets Emma’s panties moist, so the two young ladies go on one of his trips, along with surly crew member Ruhan (Ta’imua). After further lectures, interspersed with light shark petting, things go off the rails when an attempt to stage a feeding frenzy goes wrong. The boat is holed below the waterline, the engine broken, and the comms prove useless. Good job the pack of tiger sharks in the area have listened to Mandal, and know that tourists are friends, not food. Oh, wait…
Though the bigger threat to survival turns out to be Ruhan, who stabs Lani so he can swipe the escape canoe. Maybe Mandal was right. Or maybe, never trust a foreigner? You choose the message you want to take from this, because it’s a muddled mess of a script. For example, it makes a point of mentioning the two women are nurses, yet this is never of significance – Mandal ends up tourniqueing his own leg wound. Indeed, it makes Lani’s utter squeamishness at the chum bucket used to lure the sharks totally dumb. Nurses deal with far worse things than fish heads on a daily basis. The best thing I can say about the production is, it showcases some spectacular and gorgeous Thai scenery.
Otherwise, it becomes steadily more irritating, as you realize it’s going to be little more than copious amounts of sitting around. The sinking ship on which they are sat, ends up a metaphor for much of the film. There is a five-minute chunk where a dead body needs to be disposed of (in a gory fashion at odds with the rest of the movie), followed by the ship finally disappearing beneath the waves. I momentarily hoped it was going full bleakness, and had the credits rolled there, I’d have been genuinely impressed. Instead, things rumble on for another twenty minutes, through a ridiculously contrived finale, designed purely to give Emma a “good for her” moment she has hardly earned. You could remove the sharks entirely here, and it’d almost continue to function. Would still suck though.
This review is part of our feature, Shark Week 2026: Gill-ty as charged.