Ok, several different things are happening in Red Water. Let’s see if I can keep them straight. Oil well workers setting off explosions underwater somehow unleashed a bull shark into the Mississippi River, down by the bayou country. If a bull shark doesn’t sound too threatening, the movie helpfully assures us that, although Great Whites may be more impressive, bull sharks actually attack more people than any other species of shark. So that’s that. Once In the river, the bull shark gets busy chowing down on a bikini-clad babe who thought she was safe swimming in the river, and and old man who’s fishing with his grandson (looking on the bright side, this kid will now have a whale of a fishing story to tell). Getting back to the drilling team, once they discover a pocket of natural gas, their company calls in Kelli Raymond (Kristy Swanson, who originally played Buffy The Vampire Slayer in the theatrical film) one of their suits.
Kelli promptly goes to her ex-husband, John Sanders (Lou Diamond Phillips),
because John is a renowned expert at oil drilling--until the day when several
men were killed while on his watch in an oil rig accident. Never able to forgive
himself, John buys a fishing boat and calls it The Bitter End. He’s got a real
touch for irony, that John does, huh? After the obligatory scene where he turns
her down flat, John eventually runs Kelli up to the drill site in his boat. Are
you still with me? Good. Meanwhile, there’s some bad guys down in St. Thomas who
decide to send Coolio and a really weird guy with a nasty attitude to go to the
same spot in the river--the exact same spot where the oil rig is--in order to
find some buried treasure. Oil well drillers, two ex-lovers, some gangsters and
a shark all in the same place at the same time. Much hilarity follows.
Although it takes place in the Louisiana Bayou, Red Water was actually shot in South Africa, and the filmmakers do a good job at hiding the SA locations. Red Water isn’t a terrible film--it’s lame, but in a fun, B-movie kind of way. This story could have worked just as well with an alligator--which there are plenty in Louisiana--than with a shark. But the shark effects, both above and below the water, are still very well done. It’s also filled with plenty of unintentionally funny moments where people manage to keep dumbly falling into the water just so that the shark can remain in play. Swanson and Phillips are solid and very good in their roles, and filming overseas enabled the film to enjoy much bigger production values than it would for a TV movie (you can tell this from the moments when the screen goes black for the commercial breaks).
The DVD has no special features to speak of, unless you include the option of choosing your subtitles from several different languages a special feature (they come in English for the hard of hearing, as well). And, since it was shot for television, Red Water is presented in the full screen format. Despite the pretentious efforts of the writers to try and make the shark a living symbol of the Spirit Of Black Cove, a legend within the film that casts judgment on all the characters--who each have some measure of greed within them--Red Waters is just a fun little flick that serves as a harmless diversion for an hour and a half.
--SF
Main Review Page | Back to Terror On Water Reviews | Buy Red Water on DVD Here!
