Unfortunately, Dangerous Waters will always have a place in Hollywood history for unfortunate reasons, with star Ray Liotta passing away at the age of 67 midway through shooting. Understandably, that necessitated some changes to the production, but the far-fetched action thriller still manages to overcome off-set tragedy to deliver decent enough pulpy thrills.
The opening act is fairly standard and humdrum stuff, with Odeya Rush’s sullen teenager setting off on a sailing adventure with her formerly-single mother and her new boyfriend, played by Saffron Burrows and Eric Dane. However, when things go catastrophically wrong and then continue to do so at every turn, the film hits its stride by deciding to throw caution to the wind and take a wild left turn that works way better than it realistically should.
Starting off as a family-orientated drama before morphing into a survival thriller, you might think you’ve got Dangerous Waters all figured out by the halfway point. And then, much to co-writer and director John Barr’s credit – helped in no small part by a ferocious turn from Rush – it suddenly evolves into something that exists in the ludicrous middle ground between assassin action classic Nikita, Liam Neeson’s Taken, and Steven Seagal’s Under Siege. It absolutely shouldn’t work, but remarkably, it does.
Suspension of disbelief is of course pivotal to your enjoyment of the increasingly-preposterous escapades, with Liotta slithering into the picture and giving excellent sleazeball as The Captain, a nefarious modern-day spin on a buccaneering pirate who has his eyes on a much more unsavory cargo than simply treasure chests full of doubloons. There’s enough going on to fill three features with ease, but condensing it all down to a 100 or so minutes of nonstop, breathless action makes it a breezy watch that works a lot better if your expectations are set reasonably low.
That’s not to say it’s a bad movie – far from it, in fact – but the world is swamped with so many action thrillers releasing on an almost-weekly basis that it takes something truly special to stand out from the pack. Dangerous Waters most definitely isn’t that, but if you’ve got time to kill and have no intention of even contemplating setting your brain to its “on” setting, then there’s no shortage of fun to be had.
The early discovery of a hefty assault rifle below deck creates understandable suspicions for Rush’s Rose, which become abundantly clear when their happy-go-lucky bonding trip becomes a massacre when a skiff full of armed thugs descend on the scene, tying Dane’s Derek directly to the Captain. Sure, the characters are fairly stock and once the narrative settles into its groove it doesn’t bring anything to the table, but the Euphoria star’s square-jawed charisma always works best when it’s underscored by a simmering malevolence, and there’s plenty of that to be found here.
Rush, meanwhile, seamlessly segues from wide-eyed innocent party caught up in a spiraling situation they can’t control to gun-toting action hero to indicate she might just have a future kicking all kinds of ass in plenty more high-octane genre flicks to come. Again, the transformation comes almost out of nowhere, but when the performer is so committed to the bit and the person behind the camera skirts the line between self-seriousness and self-parody, it comes off as joyous rather than jarring.
It’s established early on that Rose knows how to handle herself and is no stranger to firearms, which does at least lay the foundations for what’s to come, but it does become more and more ludicrous just how adept and capable she becomes when each new obstacle presents itself to be overcome.
Stranded at sea? Fine. Barely survived a bullet-riddled assault? No problem. Trapped by a maniac with no way of escaping? We’ll see about that. Caught on what’s basically a floating brothel manned by one-note cartoonish villains? Give her a gun, and you’ll see how it ends out. She’s basically the Terminator by the time the credits come up, but as mentioned, it’s easy to give it a pass thanks in equal part to both Rush’s stellar work in the lead and Barr’s propulsive direction making it easy to get lost in the madness of it all.
Look, nobody’s going to be proclaiming Dangerous Waters as a classic 10 years from now, but cult status isn’t out of the question. It sounds oxymoronic, but it is and isn’t what you think it’s going to be, although it’s infinitely more enjoyable when it goes for broke and skews towards the latter.
