The Reef (2010) Review

People tend to have a great apprehension of the ocean. The fear of the unknown or of what we can't see is far more substantial then what's right in front of us. The Reef is a film that exploits that fear in ways that are at times thrilling and tense and at other times stupid and boring.

Supposedly based on actual events (the only similar events I could find were from a man named Ray Boundy who was the sole survivor of an incident in 1983) The Reef is about a group of five friends who go sailing/snorkeling/fishing along the Great Barrier Reef. From one dull moment to another we follow them on a standard beautiful-people-in-beautiful-locations adventure. The group's small sailboat capsizes after colliding with the reef and four of them decide to take their chances and swim for a (hopefully) nearby island. Along their way there they begin to be stalked by a Great White Shark.

The film is written and directed by Andrew Traucki. It basically follows the same plot as his previous survival film, Black Water, but substitutes a shark in the place of a crocodile and a boat in the place of a tree. Sometimes in the film he does a good job of creating tension by extending the time before the characters either see the shark they know is there or before the shark attacks but once the shark does attack it turns into a jump-scare fest. He'd been better off focusing on the pressure that the characters have from being tired, dehydrated and traumatized by the death of their friends one by one.

The film ends right where it should have begun. The sole survivor makes it to a rock and we get the usual "So-and-so was found three days later. The other guy who stayed behind wasn't found". Something that would have been far more original and interesting is after she is found she recounts her ordeal in flashbacks. Then we could have seen how it might have affected her but instead we are simply left with a moment we've seen five hundred billion times before.
★1/2