Since his heyday in the 1990s, filmmaker Renny Harlin has had some ups and downs in terms of critical reception to his work. It’s been a while since the decade that brought us Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Deep Blue Sea, and although I am fully cognizant of the fact that we are currently in the year 2026, it would have been easy to convince me that Harlin’s latest film was plucked directly from 1996. Deep Water, starring Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) and Ben Kingsley (Sneakers), is now available on Blu-Ray and finds Harlin putting his 90s action movie chops to good use.
This film is majorly effective in its “out of the frying pan into the fire” approach for our central characters. In this case, the frying pan is a plane crash and the fire is a hoard of man-eating sharks that smell blood in the water. From the opening minutes of Deep Water, as our various protagonists converge at an airport, the audience instinctively starts the countdown on their internal clocks for the impending aviation disaster. As Charles Grodin warned us in Midnight Run, “These things go down.” But before we get to the truly awe-inspiring plane crash set piece, it’s important to note how Harlin’s film spends just enough time in its first few scenes to give us some insight into the lives of the people who are about to experience this cataclysmic event. One of them, in particular, carries pain from his home life and is running away from facing it. Then, there are a couple of 20-somethings with feelings for each other caught in a will-they-won’t-they dynamic. We also have young children adjusting to a blended family. And another character is a grandmother looking forward to reuniting with her grandchild on the other side of the world. There are notes of interiority and history given to these characters’ backgrounds, establishing a connection with the audience in a fashion that lesser films of this genre would fail to do.
But about that plane crash. The intensity of that terror is visualized here in ways that I have rarely seen on film. When the plane starts going down, objects of every size and shape become deadly projectiles. The everyday accoutrements and paraphernalia found on a commercial jumbo jet are instantly transformed into speeding bullets that meet the human anatomy with bone-shattering impact: oxygen tanks, nuts and bolts, reading glasses, baby dolls, you name it. This sequence is a convergence of the impressive staging and directorial guidance from Harlin, Geoff Lamb’s (Talk to Me) deft hand in the edit, and the work of supervising sound editor Oriol Tarragó (Society of the Snow). The quiet hum of an airplane’s cabin is instantly replaced by the roar of depressurization, the whistling of debris, and the screams of passengers. There is a startling kineticism in the violence we are witnessing, and we care about it because we care about the characters, thanks to their narratively efficient introductions.
And again, this all happens before we meet our aquatic adversaries. Some movies are plane crash movies, and others are shark movies. Deep Water is both. While the shark portion never quite reaches the heights of the plane crash set piece, it is still a perfectly entertaining addition to the ocean survival canon of motion pictures. This is aided by the sheer volume of the sharks. Steven Spielberg perfected the single shark formula with Jaws in 1975, so that shadow is always going to be hanging over movies like Deep Water. So how do you try to separate yourself from that? Well, making the shark plural is a good start. The only thing worse than one hungry shark is a few dozen hungry sharks. Additionally, the physical setup of the plane’s wreckage in the water makes for compelling dramatic tension. Obviously, the plane wasn’t going to go down in one piece. As such, certain characters are grouped together in certain sections of the detritus. Their best chance at survival is ultimately merging on a singular raft, but these splintered groups are separated by hundreds of yards of open water and sharks. The teams of survivors must work together to the best of their abilities — although, this is not exactly the most fruitful collaborative environment. If you enjoy watching ill-equipped people solve nearly-impossible problems, Deep Water fits the bill.
Regarding the cast, Deep Water further reinforces the notion that Aaron Eckhart is the kind of actor who was made to have blood, sweat, and viscera smeared across his face. It’s nothing quite to the extent of his Harvey Dent/Two-Face portrayal in The Dark Knight (2008), but he certainly gets a few scenes of schmutzy glory. Young talent Molly Belle Wright (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever) is another standout in the cast. Her interactions with Eckhart are an emotional anchor for the third act, in particular. While their characters are not related by blood, their life-or-death situation forms a surrogate father-daughter dynamic between them. On the flip side, it was also necessary for this movie to have a positively hatable and unredeemable human character to lean into the roots of the genre. We have that in a character played by Angus Sampson (They Will Kill You). He does not have a single scene that grants his character sympathetic qualities. The audience develops a deep, bloodthirsty desire for his comeuppance, because, yes, people die in this film and meet violent ends. We are trained, as the viewer, to know that it’s only a matter of time before the devil comes to collect his dues. You’ll have to watch the film for yourself to see if that anticipation results in a sweet release.
Unfortunately, the physical media release for Deep Water has nary a special feature to be found. Do you know what I would give for even a 5-minute featurette on the plane crash sequence alone? Or a mini-documentary on the challenges of water-based productions? A director’s commentary from Harlin, perhaps? I am still fully comfortable in recommending Deep Water on Blu-ray as the feature film itself plays effectively in a home screening environment. Everything about the film that worked for me when I saw it theatrically remains in the DNA of the home video version, but I mourn the steady decline of behind-the-scenes content on physical media.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD July 14th, 2026.
For more information, head to the official Deep Water website.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews
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