The Deep is one of those movies that has been on my radar since I was about 8 years old, but has eluded me until now. I'm a huge Jaws fan (who isn't?) so I've always meant to catch up with it, being that its one of two other movie adaptations of Peter Benchley's books (along with Island). But I'd never really heard or read any significant impressions of The Deep, good or bad, so I've always assumed that it was just middling or forgettable. However, I think its fate to be forgotten had less to do with the actual quality of the movie and more to do with a begged-for comparison to Jaws and its unfortunately timed entrance into theatres. The Deep opened just 2 or 3 weeks after Star Wars, a movie that redefined the idea of a blockbuster hit and reigned supreme over box office tallies for several years. Jaws and Star Wars made waves and changed the course of movies forever. The Deep made pop cultural ripples that quickly receded.
Everything about The Deep seems poised to trade on the phenomenon that was Steven Spielberg's Jaws. The casting of Robert Shaw as crusty treasure-hunter Treece is one of the films more blatant attempts to blur the lines between the two Benchley adaptations. Even the poster design is meant to evoke the instant-classic that took summer theatres by storm just two years prior.
Look:
As it turns out, The Deep is mediocre, but only when held up against the forebear it so desperately wants to be mistaken for. The films strategy of riding in on the coattails of Jaws backfired, making it look empty, dull and opportunistic by comparison. But when viewed on its own, out from underneath the dark shadow of a 25 foot celebrity shark, The Deep is a fun little adventure story. And next to what counts as mediocre in 2010, it looks like a fucking classic.
As it turns out, The Deep is mediocre, but only when held up against the forebear it so desperately wants to be mistaken for. The films strategy of riding in on the coattails of Jaws backfired, making it look empty, dull and opportunistic by comparison. But when viewed on its own, out from underneath the dark shadow of a 25 foot celebrity shark, The Deep is a fun little adventure story. And next to what counts as mediocre in 2010, it looks like a fucking classic.
The Deep begins with gorgeous, bronzed 70's couple Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset scuba diving in turquoise Bermuda waters. Despite the fact that I'd never heard one good thing uttered about the movie, I immediately knew it wasn't going to suck. For one, as Nolte and Bisset prowled the ocean floor, dusting off sunken relics during the credits, the first notes of a haunting John Barry score began tickling my groovy bone. And secondly, Jacqueline Bisset is scuba diving in a see-through white t-shirt and no bra! This also tickled my groovy bone. This first (of many) underwater scuba sequence is how we are introduced to our two main protagonists, who glide through the silent waters, communicating only in gestures. They explore a sunken wreck and make two significant discoveries-- a very old medallion and a small ampule of whiskey-coloured liquid. And then Bisset is jarred and attacked by some unseen force sending them scrambling for the surface. It's an interesting gimmick, introducing the main characters as well as the main plot device in a dialogue-free, almost silent scene.
As soon as their heads break the surface, the movie is underway and Nolte and Bisset are on the hunt for answers as to what they've uncovered. The ampule, with its amber liquid, turns out to be morphine ("half-way to heroin" as someone points out) which fits since the wreck it came from is an American cargo ship circa WWII, which carried ordinance and medical supplies . But the medallion is much older and it's discovery stumps the couple. Before long they run afoul of Clouche, a Haitian gangster played by Louis Gossett who is very interested in the ampule and where exactly they found it. They turn down Clouche's polite offer to buy their find, but soon find themselves being chased by his goons. This leads to a hilarious mid-speed moped chase and an uncomfortably dicey interrogation scene--uncomfortable because the scene seems to be trading in some barely concealed racist undertones. With the couple caught, Clouche orders his beefy black bodyguard to frisk Bisset, who is maybe not so coincidentally wearing all virginal white. The man licks his lips and grins as the camera tracks his hands as they move across her body. Then after the bodyguard finishes, for no apparent reason, Bisset angrily stands up and takes her top off, presumably to show Gossett that she doesn't have the morphine ampule balanced between her breasts. The film practically holds its breath during this scene and it's a little iffy. Viewed next to an ooga-booga Voodoo ritual later and a line from Nolte where he describes Gossett to Shaw saying, "he looks like a basketball player" and I'd say the movie has a pretty healthy old-school fear-of-the-black-man strain running through it.
With Clouche on their case, the couple turns to local legend Treece (Shaw) a diver and treasure hunter who warns them of Clouche's plan to tweak the morphine into heroin and flip it for millions in New York City. The sunken cache of methadone is a local legend and divers have been searching for it for years, the medallion on the other hand is a mystery even to Treece. Despite first making a blustery refusal of their plea for help, Treece is intrigued by the medallion they found and eventually becomes their scuba-diving, treasure-hunting guru. From here the movie really divides itself into two distinct halves: underwater action and dry land action. The team make dives to the wreck, uncovering more and more clues and treasure each time. Then on the surface, they puzzle out the answers to this odd collision of lost medicine and sunken treasure, with the occasional fist fight or action scene thrown in as Clouche makes incursions into their investigation. Eventually the threesome strike a deal with the devil, agreeing to recover the methadone for Clouche if he backs off and ceases the threats. But Shaw (an anti-drug crusader for some odd reason) is planning to wire the wreck with explosives and blow it and the drugs into an abyss.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for this time period, but I was thoroughly entertained by The Deep, despite the fact that it's a fairly by-the-numbers adventure story with few surprises. That said, there is still a high quality of craftsmanship at work to create such an easily-digestible slice of 70's studio fast food. It clips along, sweeping you up into a Caribbean vacation fantasy, like something dreamed up on a beach towel. Essentially, it's beautiful people doing exciting things in a beautiful place, which sounds hard to fuck up, but when you consider modern examples like Into the Blue and Fool's Gold, you'll appreciate The Deep's sure-hand. The underwater sequences are very coherent and well choreographed, while the surface world action is stylishly shot. The script (co-written by Benchley himself) is very tight, briskly moving through plot beats without feeling like it's leaving logic or character behind. It also has some great quotable lines from Shaw and salty dog Eli Wallach.
It appears that most of the diving was actually done by the cast themselves, which is impressive when you see the underwater set pieces and consider the suffocating claustrophobia of acting in submerged sets--and the cast is really the key to movie's minor success. Bissett looks every bit the 70's sex symbol goddess she was. In one of the funniest scenes (unintentionally), Bissett is begging Nolte not to go night diving down to the wreck and Nolte is giving an impassioned speech as to why he has to. Except Bissett is sitting on the bed wearing nothing but a towel, rendering the whole argument ludicrous with her sheer sex appeal. Shaw and Notle look pretty iconic in the movie as well, almost like models for a line of toy action figures that were probably never made. Shaw does all his diving in slacks and dress shirts! And Nolte wears a blue and yellow striped wet suit that makes him look like he's some kind of scuba diving super hero. The other super rad thing about the movie is a very memorable fight scene between both Gossett and Shaw's beefy tough guy bodyguards. Oh yeah, Shaw for some reason has some silent, bodyguard/life partner played by legendary stunt-man and amazing movie tough Robert Tessier who menaced many a movie hero in flicks from The Longest Yard to Hard Times.
Despite the fact that the movie tries a few too many times to fool you into thinking your watching Jaws' younger brother (I mean the giant eel is a poor substitute for Bruce), it's a fun ride. And I dare anybody to leave the film unhappy after its final freeze frame of a smiling Nolte catching a priceless jewel in mid-air.
The best thing about the Deep is that they never appeared to go all that deep. I mean they hint at how deep they might be when Nolte tries to keep Bisset from going to the surface too quickly (after the amazing unseen creature attack that slams her scantily clad body against the hull way too many times, almost as though it is a sea monster rapist of some form) presumably to avoid the bends, but I don't think they ever explicitly cover that, and it just came off like he too had caught sea monster sex fever and was trying to catch her as well. Anyway, given they are also just off the coast I remain unconvinced that any depths were deep enough to deserve that title. I mean who goes deep sea diving in their normal clothes? Dirk Pitt would probably, but come on, he plays by his own rules man!
ReplyDeleteAnd as for that tagline on that poster, yes there are many things worth the terror of the deep because it was not a very terrifying place. At least not when top side you're dealing with a pre-Marked For Death Haitian voodoo gang that just ties up chicks and paints them with goat's blood for kicks, and murders other friends of the protagonists for no real reason other than they are bad.
BTW the reason for Tessier's character was that he was supposed to be Shaw's pseudo-dad, who previously shacked up with his mom and now looked out for him since her passing.