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There are sharks in the water--and that's really all you need to know about
The Reef, an effective little nerve-twister from Australia. Five people embark on an innocent sailing trip around the Great Barrier Reef, but when said reef comes into sharp proximity with the bottom of their boat, they have a choice: stay on the capsized craft as the current drags it to the open ocean, or swim for it. (It's not a spoiler to report that not everybody takes the plunge.) As dorsal fins are flashing in the vicinity, this is going to be one long swim. While the swimmers find themselves surrounded by open water, the movie itself is surrounded by
Open Water, the 2003 film on a very similar subject.
Reef director Andrew Traucki has no shyness about telegraphing his effects (hmmm, I'm sure paddling over by myself to retrieve that broken float just after the shark finally got quiet is probably a good idea, right?) or leaning heavily on nature footage of great whites circling ominously; supposedly there are no CGI sharks or animatronic beasties here. A couple of moments are genuinely popcorn-dropping, no doubt about it. The stock characters may be nothing to rave about, but the actors themselves are agreeable, and the movie's do-or-die situation provides an elemental tug that's hard to resist, even if you know better.
--Robert Horton
