Writers: Chad Law and Josh Ridgway
Director: Christian Sesma
Will we ever tire of shark films? Will directors ever tire of making them? With 2023’s hit sequel Meg 2: The Trench making nearly $400 million at the box office despite poor reviews, there’s plenty of bite left in the genre. This January sees two shark films muscling in on the action. Last Breath: Escape from the Deep, currently available on Paramount + and now this one, Into The Deep, directed by Christian Sesma. Neither has the budget of the Megalodon series, but both have a big name steering the film in the right direction.
Last Breath: Escape from the Deep (not to be confused with Woody Harrelson’s forthcoming Last Breath, another diving movie) features Julian Sands replete with comedy Yorkshireman accent in his final film, while Into The Deep stars veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss. But neither of these actors can really save the day when the sharks come to feed on live human flesh. Indeed, the avuncular Dreyfuss never even encounters a shark; he’s safely on dry ground back in the States, mostly appearing in flashbacks while his granddaughter Cassidy battles Great Whites and pirates on the coast of Madagascar.
After witnessing her father being eaten by a shark when she was a young girl, Cassidy should know better than to step foot on another boat, but if there’s one thing her grandfather has taught her, it’s to face her fears. So she agrees to go diving for treasure with her new husband on the anniversary of her father’s death. The sharks must know how auspicious the date is for they arrive pretty quickly when Cassidy and Gregg explore an old shipwreck looking for gold.
But it’s not just the sharks they have to look out for. When a Great White chows down on the arm of one of their friends, husband and wife, looking for help, hail down the wrong boat. Instead of being towed quickly to shore, Cassidy and Gregg find themselves in deeper trouble, forced to dive for drugs that have been dropped in the ocean. Held at gunpoint on the ship and with gnashing jaws below, Cassidy and Gregg are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
The action that follows is fine if perfunctory, although the drum score that underlines these moments is repetitive. Still, the action is better than the dialogue. Everything is dragged out by the numerous syrupy flashbacks with Dreyfuss doling out platitudes to a young Cassidy in a swimming pool.
Scout Taylor-Compton and Callum McGowan are a little stilted in their performances as the husband and wife, but they do their best with what they’re given. Dreyfuss is understated but his speech over the credits about the future of sharks seems misjudged when the film’s subject is that of killer sharks, one of which features on the poster. Of course, and rather too blatantly, the drug smugglers are meant to be the real villains here, but that’s not what we’ve signed up for.
Into the Deep isn’t deep but it’s not completely dead in the water. Sands’ The Last Breath is eminently more exciting despite the fact that’s it basically a rehash of The Poseidon Adventure with added fishy friends. Both will do until Meg 3 comes out.
Intothe Deep is available on Digital Platforms 27 January and DVD 3 February. Distributed by Signature Entertainment