Finnish director Renny Harlin has released a new shark thriller, "En mar abierto" ("In Open Water"), in which a passenger plane crashes into open water and the survivors are attacked by a swarm of hungry mako sharks gathered around a coral reef, according to a review by critic Manuel López Sampalo.
In an early scene, while waiting to board at the airport, the plane's first officer calms a young girl who is afraid of flying by telling her that hippopotamuses are more dangerous than airplanes, López Sampalo wrote. He noted that the shark attack is not a twist but the premise the film opens with.
López Sampalo argued that the film's release in the middle of summer, when more people fly and swim, makes its combination of an air disaster and a shark attack especially unsettling. He wrote that people with phobias should skip "En mar abierto", since films like it feed fears of flying rather than helping audiences overcome them.
He recalled that the singer known as Lichis, of the band La Cabra Mecánica, has sung that tobacco kills more people than plane crashes and that he had lost his fear of flying, but argued that statistics do not erase irrational fears, pointing out that phobias such as a fear of cockroaches persist even though the insects pose little real danger. He also wrote that, since Steven Spielberg's "Tiburón" (Jaws) premiered fifty years ago, few swimmers have failed to imagine seeing a shark fin break the surface of the sea, adding that he had felt this himself the day after watching the film, when he went swimming at Santa María del Mar beach in Cádiz.
A return to sharks, 27 years later
The film marks Harlin's second attempt at a shark movie. His first was 1999's "Deep Blue Sea", which also featured mako sharks and divided critics, with some calling it a pretentious flop about genetically enhanced sharks and others regarding it as a cult classic, according to López Sampalo. Twenty-seven years on, he wrote, Harlin has tempered his ambitions and delivered a straightforward, crowd-pleasing entertainment that follows the conventions of the genre.
Harlin, born in Finland, is known for directing Hollywood action films including "Die Hard 2" and "Cliffhanger".
A troubled production filmed in the Canary Islands
As many as six screenwriters, Pete Bridges, John Kim, Shayne Armstrong, Shane Krause, Damien Power and Dan Luo, worked on the script, according to the review, which described the film's production history as convoluted. Spain took part in the co-production alongside the United States and New Zealand, and much of the film was shot in waters off the Canary Islands. The score was composed by Fernando Velázquez, a composer from Biscay in northern Spain.
Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley lead the cast
Aaron Eckhart stars as the plane's first officer, while Ben Kingsley plays the captain, a character in his eighties still at the helm of the aircraft. Kingsley won an Academy Award for playing the title role in 1982's "Gandhi", while Eckhart is known for roles including Harvey Dent in "The Dark Knight".
The rest of the cast includes Kelly Gale, Angus Sampson and Molly Belle Wright.
