When we sat down to watch this, I warned Tony to concentrate because it’s a complex, demanding, nuanced film. Not. Set in the Caribbean, it’s an entertaining, fast-paced, TOTALLY undemanding and quite funny account of an underwater (and above ground) treasure hunt, which seems to be all that people do in that part of the world.
Fittingly for Valentine’s Day (apparently that’s sometime soon) there’s a love story in here somewhere too. Or a lust story – I couldn’t make up my mind.
The clarity of the water is unbelievable – top to bottom visibility – and even though the diving sequences are relatively brief in the overall arc of the movie, they’re entertaining. Curiously, the inimitable Donald Sutherland plays a fairly important role as a wealthy yacht owner, and the scenes in which he is taught to scuba dive (in a jacuzzi onboard the yacht) are priceless.
The film does perpetuate the myth that Hollywood stars are uniformly able to hold their breaths for upwards of three minutes, while performing complex tasks underwater and still looking attractive and put together. I choose not to believe this (and it’s not because I can only hold my breath for 30 seconds, and look like a deranged chipmunk while doing so). If I had a hot stunt double, I am sure I too could hold my breath long enough to anchor myself to a submerged cannon in a blowhole to prevent the rapidly incoming waves from washing me out of the top, and have a meaningful sign-language conversation with my significant other (also looking hot) while doing so.
There’s nothing challenging here, but sometimes that’s a good thing. After a weekend diving in two metre visibility at Long Beach, this reminded me that better days (and dives) are coming!
The DVD is available here. If you’re not in South Africa, you can get it here.
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