I enjoy films like Open Water and The Reef so I really thought I'd like this but sadly it wasn't to be. ****MAJOR SPOILERS****Sean Astin plays a character who thinks he is responsible for the deaths of two people so goes out on Lake Michigan with the intention of killing himself. He runs over a small aircraft, damaging the boat, finds the pilot and drags him aboard. The propellor on the boat is gone so they are stuck and the pilot is injured. So far, so good. Then..well, not a lot really. We are told their stories in flashback. The pilot is delivering a backpack to some dodgy guys who he insists will kill him. In the end they popped up, got the backpack and left. Possibly the biggest anticlimax in film history. There was no real sense of danger with them being stuck on the boat as, well, they were on a lake, a big lake granted but still not the middle of the Atlantic. The two deaths that Mitch felt responsible for were laughable and overall the story wasn't really well thought out.
The acting went between okay and ridiculous which disappointed me as I watched Sean Martin in Stranger Things and thought he was great in it but I suppose some blame has to be attributed to the director. The ending, I'm assuming, was supposed to be uplifting and inspirational but I don't think it would be too long before he was back out on the lake for his next suicide attempt if his big life turn around was a new fish and a job in a care home.
These kind of films that don't have a lot of action need to keep us gripped with good storylines and solid acting but I'm afraid this one was just blah. Change the reason he wanted to kill himself, take out the ludicrous gangster story, add some actual tension and much better dialogue between the two men and it could be a decent film. As it is, I gave it a four for the funny dog story and...sorry, just the funny dog story.
Review of The Surface
