INTO THE DEEP movie poster | ©2025 Saban Films

Rating: R
Stars: Callum McGowan, Scout Taylor-Compton, Jon Seda, Stuart Townsend, Richard Dreyfuss, AnnaMaria Demara, David Gray, Lorena Sarria, Tofan Pirani, Ron Smoonenburg, Tom O’Connell, Maverick Kang, Mek Manbut, Panuson Maneesang, Quinn Hensley, Nina Padovan
Writers: Chad Law and Josh Ridgway
Director: Christian Sesma
Distributor: Saban Films
Release Date: January 24, 2025

INTO THE DEEP combines Great White sharks, drug pirates, and some innocent treasure hunters. As far as this goes, the film unspools the way we might expect. However, it’s notable for a pre-climactic moment that’s actually more in line with reality than some of the scenes that precede it.

Also, credit goes to director Christian Sesma for helming the script by writers Chad Law and Josh Ridgway for treating the material with just the right amount of sobriety. The tone is serious, but somehow just swerves away at the last second from biting off more melodrama than it can chew.

When Cassidy (played as a six-year-old by Nina Padovan) is very young, she and her father are offshore in the tropics when he is attacked and killed by a Great White shark.

As an adult, newly-married Cassidy (Scout Taylor-Compton) agrees to accompany loving husband Gregg (Callum McGowan) on a dive in search of sunken treasure. Gregg is on assignment from the British Museum to recover gold from a wreck, and Cassidy is determined to go on the mission with him – even though it’s the anniversary of her father’s death and the wreck site is in the waters where he died.

Rounding out the group are Gregg’s old friend Captain Daemon Benz (Stuart Townsend), his first mate Kai (Mek Manbut), plus couple Itsara (Lorena Sarria) and Pierre (Maverick Kang Jr.).

Cassidy has a monetary freakout when she sees a shark cage on board, but Benz assures her they won’t be using it.

Unfortunately, there’s a modern-day pirate ship in the area. Captain Jordan Devane (Jon Seda) and his crew are looking for bales of heroin that were dropped around here, and they have no compunction about taking over Benz’s craft.

Cassidy volunteers to bring up the bags herself in exchange for the lives of her husband and friends. Since there is already ample proof there are Great Whites nearby, Devane agrees.

This is intercut with flashbacks to Cassidy as a nine-year-old (Quinn Hensley) with her grandfather (Richard Dreyfuss), a marine biologist who wants the little girl to get over her night terrors and understandable fear of the sea.

The flashbacks are on the knife edge of being too much. However, having Dreyfuss in a shark movie, as a marine biologist, no less (if you don’t know why that’s significant, this reviewer can’t help you), still has some agreeable resonance.

Furthermore, it looks like Dreyfuss signed on because he’s been given a gamut of emotions to play, rather than simply showing up. He’s so into what he’s doing that it’s actually fun. It also sets up a sequence near the finale that works in several ways, even if it doesn’t exactly jibe with what’s come before.

To be clear, individual Great White sharks just don’t eat as much in a short period as they do here. The filmmakers might have borrowed from, say, 47 METERS and established more sharks in the vicinity, so that we’re not relying on the same two to pursue humans over and over. INTO THE DEEP is one of those movies where we have to accept certain narrative conventions.

On the plausibility side, we get to see a variety of fish in the water, and the wreck looks credibly covered in barnacles, algae and other saltwater buildup. The behavior of the pirates likewise tallies with news and documentary coverage of seagoing drug traffickers.

In addition to Dreyfuss, the rest of the cast is good, with Taylor-Compton properly scared, grieving and fierce as the occasion demands, and Seda suitably self-assured as the boss drug trafficker.

For fans of Dreyfuss and/or sharks, the actor as himself makes a pitch for the wisdom and ethics of shark conservation efforts over the end credits.

INTO THE DEEP isn’t all that, well, deep, but it achieves what it seems to be trying to do in modestly entertaining fashion.

Related: Movie Review: WOLF MAN
Related: Movie Review: THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (LE COMTE DE MONTE CRISTO)
Related: Movie Review: THE LAST SHOWGIRL
Related: Movie Review: GET AWAY
Related: Movie Review: THE PROSECUTOR (NG POON)
Related: Movie Review: THE MAN IN THE WHITE VAN
Related: Movie Review: THE DAMNED
Related: Movie Review: NOSFERATU
Related: Movie Review: NIGHTBITCH
Related: Movie Review: WEREWOLVES
Related: Movie Review: THE RETURN
Related: Movie Review: WICKED – PART 1

Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: INTO THE DEEP

Related Posts: