‘Thrash’ movie review: Phoebe Dynevor gives birth in shark-infested floodwaters in preposterous but fun movie on Netflix

Every shark movie owes a debt to the Holy Mother JawsBut the thriller is about tiny creatures who wreak carnage and mayhem in bad weather Thrash What he most resembles is Alexandre Aja’s distinct nail-biting, Crawl. (By the way, where’s that sequel we were promised?) Instead of voracious alligators preying on Florida locals caught up in a Category 5 hurricane, this time there’s a group of aggressive bull sharks and a very hungry pregnant great white cruising through a South Carolina coastal town when levees break and floodwaters rise.

Although the title may be missing the first “h”, Tommy Wirkola’s film is actually kind of fun in its own silly, disposable way, and should do good numbers on Netflix, where it picked up after Sony dropped plans for a theatrical release. That is, if audiences can get on board with surprising plot points like Phoebe Dynevor’s Lisa throwing a baby into rushing water and, almost immediately afterwards, telling the infant: “Mummy’s here. Mummy’s just gotta fight off some damn sharks.”

Wirkola (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters) He seems to want to have it both ways Thrash With self-aware humour Sharenado– juxtaposed absurdity while crafting a quasi-realistic disaster film that reaches contemporary relevance by noting the dramatic increase in frequency, intensity, and duration of Atlantic hurricanes and the deadly threat of storm surge. The result is a film that’s neither one thing nor the other, though at just under 90 minutes, it’s fast-paced and eventful enough to entertain fans of the shark subgenre.

We meet the engaging main characters as Hurricane Henry gains speed and text on the screen shows the time remaining until landfall.

Transplanted New Yorker Lisa works in the factory offices of McKay’s Meats (presumably a vague reference to producer Adam McKay). She is now pregnant and alone after moving thousands of miles from home for her idiot fiancé who immediately ran away. Her concerned mother urges her over the phone to think more about giving birth in the water (a joke that pays off later) as she drives past townspeople as they scramble to comply with a mandatory evacuation order. When Lisa learned that the highway was already closed, she realized that she had left it too late to escape.

Eighteen-year-old Dakota (Whitney Peck) lost her father at a young age and is still traumatized by her mother’s recent death, which has left her anxious and agoraphobic. She insists on sheltering in place until marine biologist Uncle Del (Djimon Hounsou), two hours away from the coast by boat, can come to her rescue. When Lisa is trapped in her car by a falling tree, Dakota is forced to venture outside or watch the expectant mother drown as she goes into labor.

Meanwhile, across town, teenager Ron (Stacey Clausen) and his younger siblings Dee (Alila Brown) and Will (Dante Ubaldi) are stuck at the mercy of their neglectful foster parents, who cash government support checks and feed the kids dry Wonder Bread while they eat steak.

Their adopted redneck father Billy Olson (Matt Nable) is certain that reinforced glass, waterproof wiring and the house’s generator will get them safely through the storm. (“There’s nothing but a little weather.”) But when a wall of water crashes through the windows, turning the living room into a swimming pool that’s quickly crawling with dorsal fins, the kids are left to fend for themselves.

Filmed mostly in a studio and in a purpose-built tank in Melbourne, Australia, Wirkola handles the hurricane elements with aplomb, mixing practical effects with stock footage and only occasionally distracting CG as trees fold in the howling winds, cars are swept away, roofs are torn off and walls are torn down. It brings down enough secondary characters to provide food for the sharks while the managers struggle to survive. The McKay’s Meats tanker truck being split in half, unloading industrial amounts of fresh chum, is a funny touch.

The Norwegian director balanced horror, humor, and action with greater skill in the films that put him on the map. Dead snow and its sequel, which dropped Nazi zombies into mountain forests. Hilarious moments, like Lisa playing Vanessa Carlton on her phone to calm her down as contractions approach, feel a little forced, as do some lines, like Dee saying to her little brother, “Hey Will, I bet you never saw this on… Shark Week“, after Ron prepared an appetizer of T-bone and dynamite.

At the height of the tension, Hounsou gets the groan-worthy task of pausing the action long enough to share his back story with a cocky TV journalist (Andrew Lees), tracing his fascination with sharks back to a near-fatal hippopotamus attack in Mozambique, when a pair of ferocious sharks intervene just in the nick of time. Kudos to the actor for delivering those lines with a straight face.

Nothing in Thrash Steven Spielberg would impress, and his commitment to plot logic is flexible, to say the least. But as gory and stupid shark thrillers go, it stays afloat, gaining some credibility from the natural disaster element. Compared to the survival of a stinking shark like Rekin With Alicia Silverstone or Black devil With Josh Lucas, it’s more than acceptable.