Film Review: Open Water

My first Deep Blue Terror weekend was a huge success with 7 films watched and 3 books! Last weekend I looked at five films. This weekend so far I've watched another three and plan the same for tonight. Here I share with you my thoughts on another one I looked at.

Starring Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374102/?ref_=nv_sr_3 

Two scuba divers return to the surface to discover that their dive boat has miscounted and returned to shore without them, leaving them in shark infested waters.

I expected a lot more from this film to be honest. I liked the idea of the plot where you are just left stranded, too far from shore to swim back, just hoping that rescue will come quickly, then panic setting in with the sharks coming. Sadly, I found that the film had little tension or interest to it. Is it wrong to want the MC's to get eaten?

Firstly, Daniel and Susan obviously don't like being around other people. deciding to have nothing to do with the rest of the dive party and do their own thing. They are so far from the other divers that they don't notice that everyone else has surfaced and the pair finally surface at about the time the boat wanted them back, cutting the deadline close. With the mistaken count they are left behind. After being abandoned, Susan does nothing but bitch and whine and take it all out on Daniel. She wanted to go ski-ing, she didn't want to spend so much time with the eel, she thinks they were late or at the wrong spot, she thinks they should've swam for a boat, she's tired cold and sick, he shouldn't have peed near her (but it's ok for her to vomit), his frustrated shouting makes her sulk, and when they doze off and drift apart, that is his fault too. She is a pain in the arse.

There is also a lack of shark action. We see the odd fin, hear that the shark has touched them but during the main attack it is so dark we don't see anything which is really annoying. If I'm watching a shark film I do want to see the shark attack or what is the point? We also see a lot of scenes of people drinking and dancing at the shore which is all padding that we don't need and I'd rather have seen more about them being discovered missing and a rescue being started. Pretty underwhelmed by this one.