47 Metres Down
Nice cheeky B movie shot on a low budget of 5 million, but it's on Netflix so it must be good, right? Having seen the shallows and spent a bit of my own time below the oggin I decided to give it a go, even if all the luvvie online reviews suggested otherwise .. apparantly a bit of a Marmite affair.
Basically the director lumps the viewer directly into the action, without spending half the film weaving character intros. Instead he executes the characters primary objective by keeping things plain and simple. Within five minutes of the film beginning, we both knew why our lead characters Lisa and Kate were on holiday together and the dynamics that has existed between them in the past.
So to compress .. our intrpid duo are are trapped in a shark cage at the bottom of the ocean, with less than an hour of oxygen left with great white sharks circling and must fight to survive insurmountable odds, especially as one of them has no dive experiance and only along for the photos to entice her MIA boyfriend back into active service.
Back in the day I was in a similar situation, although not trapped in a shark cage was buddied by a wire to my partner on a dive off Falmouth. Anyway, a blinding mass of dense gristle flashed before us, appearing to the untrained eye to be a shark, my uncouplement was complete within seconds as I headed for surface faster than a scene from Das Boot. My buddie that I left behind was fatter than me, so I knew I had a good few minutes to make it to the dive craft. (turned out to be a dolphin called Beaky) .. but how was I to know and anyway the cemetry's full of dead heroes)
Our yelps and screams as the film progressed drew us both to the edge of our seats, whilst the atmospherics and soundtrack remained immense. I even liked this film more than the shallows and felt that it pissed over Jaws.
I score it a good 7.5/10