Without any doubt, the baddest shark in cinema is the Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias) and it gained its most infamy in 1975’s classic “Jaws” from Steven Spielberg. So, when I saw that the sharks in “Deep Blue Sea” were makos (Isurus oxyrinchus), I was especially pleased because I always thought that makos, along with the Sand tiger shark, have the most sinister teeth in the shark kingdom. It is a wicked set of gnarly, intertwined teeth and presents horror much better than the triangular shape and serration of the Great White’s teeth. So, that was the major draw for myself to check out a movie that turned out to be a little better than just OK, but could have been even better with a different casting of one of the co-stars.
‘Deep Blue Sea’
(1999; 105 minutes; rated R; directed by Renny Harlin and starring Saffron Burrows, Samuel L. Jackson, LL Cool J and Thomas Jane)
ANOTHER CASE OF RESEARCH GONE OUT OF CONTROL
There are shark movie stereotypes throughout “Deep Blue Sea,” but none actually detract from the film as much as one of the co-stars’ near somnambulance at times drags the film down (no pun intended), yet other cast members, especially rap star LL Cool J, elevate it to bobbing above “just OK.”
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As for director Renny Harlin, he does a solid job with “Deep Blue Sea,” unlike a couple of stinkers he put out before 1999: “Cutthroat Island” with then real-life wife Geena Davis in 1995 and especially a grand stinkbomb with 1990’s “The Adventures of Ford Fairlane” with Andrew Dice Clay (click here to read my review). Harlin has had an uneven career behind the camera, but “Deep Blue Sea” represents him well.
Unfortunately, headliner Saffron Burrows is a bit too laid back for the most part in the film, but does manage to ultimately elevate her character through simple toughness of spirit – and that’s always a tough mark for any actor to reach. At her worst, Burrows appears to have taken too many muscle relaxants and needs jolt of energy.
Well, she gets that and a bunch more from some terribly wicked and wickedly nasty mako sharks that she and her team of researchers are working with … well, to be accurate, on which they’re working!
The story of “Deep Blue Sea” is that a group of researchers working on rejuvenation of brain cells such that would help Alzheimer’s patients. They’re doing this through mako sharks and early on, one escapes. The movie opens with usual scene of an unsuspecting group of folks on a catamaran being attacked by the escaped mako.
Lead researcher “Dr. Susan McAlester,” played by Saffron Burrows, is skating a thin line of danger with the sharks, who have grown ever more aggressive. The incident with the catamaran sends a shiver through the research team’s financial backers, who send executive “Russell Franklin,” played by Samuel L. Jackson, out to the ocean research station to check things out.
At the station, you find the stereotypical characters from seaborne cowboy “Carter Blake,” played by Thomas Jane, who’s the facilities jack-of-all-sea-and-shark-trades; other researchers; and the facility’s cook “Sherman ‘Preacher’ Dudley,” played by LL Cool J. Further, there’s the “bikini scene” where Burrows strips off her wetsuit (she’s just wearing a bikini underneath) to use it to avoid electrocution as she shocks one of the sharks – and this, of course, is about the most-remembered scene of the film despite its competence in the horror field.
Well, things go south … here comes a ** SPOILER ALERT! **
BTW … all shark movies have doomed characters, but my praise for “Deep Blue Sea” is that it handles those obvious deaths well, although you see each coming from a mile away.
** SPOILER ALERT! **
So, things go south … when one of the rather pissed-off sharks bites off the arm of one of the researchers; then one manages to completely gobble up Jackson; one manages to eat a parrot (watch; you’ll find out the context); and follows up with basically the destruction of the underwater research facilities. More mayhem ensues and the body of the story is the attempt to escape for the survivors.
Most interesting is that Burrows’ character was initially written to survive. However, test audiences saw her as the villain and didn’t like seeing her character survive. So, a change was made … and, hasta la vista, “Dr. McAlester!” You probably, like the test audience, thought she’d be killed by a mako, so the surprise is that the character was written off after the end and some re-shooting took place.
** SPOILER ALERT ENDS! **
I won’t spell it all out for those who have read this far, so, you’ll have to find out for yourself. Here’s my look at the main cast:
- A two-time nominee for Screen Actors Guild awards (not for this one), Burrows is a mostly solid lead, but needed to show more energy throughout the role. Maybe I’m being a bit unfair, since she was horrible as a detective for 16 episodes of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and that might have influenced how I view her acting. Burrows has a somewhat slim resume of 74 credits since the first in 1991, for an actor working in both cinema and television. She was nominated for both for her work with the TV series “Boston Legal.” Burrows was also in the films “The Bank Job” with Jason Statham and “Troy” with Brad Pitt.
- An Oscar nominee and four-time nominee for Golden Globes, Jackson is his usual efficient, emotional best in this one. His character doesn’t have the substance that his had in “Pulp Fiction” and he certainly couldn’t top his work in “Jackie Brown,” which I consider his best-ever (click here to read my review). However, Jackson helps make DBS watchable and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him do anything less than solid work. He was nominated for both the Oscar and a Globe for “Pulp Fiction” and was nominated for a Globe for “Jackie Brown” (he should have the Globe as well as an Oscar in that one). Also, he was nominated for Globes for “A Time to Kill” and the TV movie “Against the Wall.” Jackson received an Honorary Oscar in 2022.
- A four-time Primetime Emmy nominee and Grammy winner and four-time nominee, LL Cool J offers the most delightful work in this cast, from my perspective. His character as a brassy, sassy cook gives way to a pretty tough guy in the end and he’s just a delight to watch each time he’s in a scene. He accomplished nothing in the simply awful reboot of “Rollerball,” but no one could have saved that piece of garbage (click here for my comparison of the original and reboot) … He won his Grammy for his rap music and was nominated for Emmys for co-hosting the TV series “Lip Synch Battle.”
- A three-time Golden Globe nominee (not for this one), Jane’s “Carter Blake” gets the most screen time and is actually considered the top headliner over Burrows. He does a solid job and basically carries the film by not failing in any scene, as it would have been all too easy to do so. Jane is quietly competent in everything his character is asked to do, but doesn’t push himself on you like other actors may have tried to accomplish. Jane’s character is the rought-and-tumble cowboy-type, but also is quietly intelligent. He was nominated for the HBO series “Hung” and was in the films “Boogie Nights” with Burt Reynolds and sinister action flick “Face/Off” with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. Jane was also in the very strangely named “Buttwhistle.”
I’m not going to take time to give individual reviews to the majority of the supporting cast, but you will find nice performances from Aida Turturro as staffer “Brenda Kerns” to Jacqueline McKenzie as marine biologist “Janice ‘Jan’ Higgins” to Stellan Skarsgård as researcher “Jim Whitlock” and to Michael Rapaport as engineer “Tom Scoggins.” I won’t spoil it and tell you which one or ones become fish food.
All things considered, Harlin does a good job; the film is watchable; and, best of all, the film brings actual surprises out of stereotypes and an interesting way for sharks to attack people who are not swimming. The action is simply superb and the movie slides along at a fast clip once you get all the initial warning and explanatory stuff out of the way.
Oh, you should also be careful when using the internet to research films. My go-to site is IMDb.com, but also Wiki has good information, too. However, Burrows’ character’s name is spelled differently on both with IMDb.com at “McAlester” and Wiki” at “McCallister” (as the family does in “Home Alone” – click here to read my review). Further, several other usually reliable sites such as Rotten Tomatoes also list the character’s name as “McCallister.”
For the record and according to the ending credits of the film, the name is spelled “McAlester.”
“Deep Blue Sea” was the 26th ranked film at the U.S. box office for 1999 with $73.6 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. It lagged far behind the No. 1 film: “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” with $430.2 million. At No. 2 was “The Sixth Sense” with $276.1 million and at No. 3 was “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” with $206 million. Here are the films from 1999 that I’ve reviewed:
- “Dogma” (sensational social drama) – click here for my review
- “Office Space” (cult anti-corporate classic) – click here for my review
- “Pushing Tin” (solid drama) – click here for my review
- “The Thomas Crown Affair” (excellent caper) – click here for my review
- “Wild Wild West” (terrifically bad steampunk) – click here for my review
Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com and Wiki):
- Thomas Jane’s birth name is Thomas Elliott; Jackson’s middle initial “L” stands for Leroy and his nickname is “King of Cool;” LL Cool J’s birth name is James Todd Smith and “LL Cool J” means “L(adies)L(ove) Cool J(ames);” and director Harlin’s birth name is Lauri Mauritz Harjola and he’s a tall 6-foot-4 by Hollywood standards and he’s a native of Finland.
- The film was shot at Fox Studios Baja where “Titanic” was filmed two years earlier.
- Directly from IMDb.com: “… (at around 9 mins) The license plate pulled from the shark’s teeth is the same one found in the tiger shark in Jaws (1975).”
- The film had a budget of $60 million and there were only a few shots of real sharks used, while most of the makos in the film were either animatronic or computer-generated.
- Producers didn’t want to spend money on a “fully trained” parrot, so it used two that had basic skills: one that could sit on LL Cool J’s shoulder and the other for flying.
- Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “There wasn’t a huge budget for the movie, and director Renny Harlin stated in the DVD commentary, “There was lots of discussion about should we have the parrot, should we not have the parrot, so we opted to have the bird, but we couldn’t afford a Hollywood parrot, a parrot that is fully trained and comes with its professional trainers and does tricks and speaks on cue and so on. So we decided to go with a parrot from Mexico City.” The production actually used two parrots–one that was good at flying, and one that was adept at sitting on LL Cool J‘s shoulder.”
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