Black Water (2018) Review

“Black Water” Japanese DVD Cover

Director: Pasha Patriki
Writer: Chad Law
Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Patrick Kilpatrick, Al Sapienza, Jasmine Waltz, Kristopher Van Varenberg, Courtney B Turk
Running Time: 104 min.

By Kelly Warner

I like Jean-Claude Van Damme. I blame/thank the good people of this here site for convincing me to give the actor’s films another look after I had dismissed them as forgettable, low-rent action movies. And, to be sure, some of them are forgettable, but there are legitimate gems in JCVD’s filmography as well. In the wake of his later productions like the self-titled JCVD, the dark and weird Universal Soldier sequels, and the unfortunately canceled Jean-Claude Van Johnson TV series, I remain interested in what the actor is doing next. So, does the star’s latest film, Black Water, join the ranks of Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning or is it more along the lines of Kill ’em All?

The film begins with Van Damme waking up groggy and drugged in a prison cell. He doesn’t know how he got there or why he’s been imprisoned. The voice of a fellow prisoner greets him. Van Damme’s neighbor Dolph Lundgren, playing a Hannibal Lecter-type intellectual prisoner that looks 7 feet tall, explains that there is prison is located leagues beneath the sea. As we get our first glimpse of the black submarine gliding through the abyss, Van Damme tries to fit together his last days of freedom to figure out how he ended up here.

It’s a good opening, throwing us right into the intrigue of the idea. The first sign that something’s not quite right, however, is when the film then backs up, takes us out of the water, and shows us the days prior to imprisonment. Van Damme plays Wheeler. We’re not told in any clear terms right off the bat what Wheeler does other than he’s involved in some sort of dangerous undercover work. He enters a hotel to meet his partner, Melissa (Courtney B Turk). There’s some talk about the importance of a newly acquired flash drive and then Melissa is undressing for sexy time. The next day, they’re ready to move on with the next part of their investigation (again, it’s not totally clear what they’re investigating at this point, other than the flash drive is involved. The flash drive is the new microfilm). Before they’re able to leave the hotel, Wheeler and Melissa are ambushed by a dozen heavily armed gunmen. After some less than stellar gunplay and vague spycraft, the flash drive is lost, Melissa is executed, and Wheeler is captured.

The plot finds its groove again when the CIA higher-ups enter the film. Patrick Kilpatrick (Death Warrant) plays Ferris, a high ranking CIA group director with the attitude of an angry bulldog. He drugs Wheeler, puts a bag over his head, and drags him off to the CIA black site submarine prison. Going along for the ride is another CIA man, Rhodes, as played by Al Sapienza (The Sopranos).  They’re given a tour of the sub, told how it works under the cooperation of a submarine skeleton crew, a mercenary task force, and a couple of young CIA agents, including the ambitious Agent Cassie Taylor (Jasmine Waltz).

The best scenes of the film feature Ferris unimpressed by everything/everybody he sees because he recognizes the threat that Wheeler poses. The screenplay by Chad Law (Close Range) has some good dialogue, too, with Kilpatrick and Sapienza getting the best lines. Once it’s clear that Wheeler is awake, Ferris ties him to a chair and threatens to stab a needle into his eye unless he tells him about the missing flash drive. The thinking in the CIA is that Wheeler has turned. The audience is never given any reason to believe that’s the case, but we’re also not clear what side the others are on. Someone on this submarine is clearly not the upstanding CIA agent they claim to be.

Shit goes sideways, the traitor reveals himself, and Wheeler fights his way out of his constraints. The young CIA operative Cassie Taylor takes a chance on Wheeler and escorts him away from the bloodshed and bullets, thus making her a target for the traitor who needs to cover up his crimes. Black Water becomes a game of cat and mouse as Wheeler and Cassie Taylor run around the sub while the traitor and the mercs chase them.

The action is enjoyable enough. It’s a tad limited by the submarine interior but there’s some decent shoot ’em up action and high kicks. I like that the film uses some very juicy squibs for gunshots and head strikes. The camerawork and editing are above average for this sort of B-movie actioner. The film is directed and shot by cinematographer Pasha Patriki (Gridlocked) in his directorial debut. I think Patriki shows promise as a director. He needs to get better at working with plot – the flash drive, the betrayals, and the black site are just excuses to put a grumpy JCVD in a submarine – but I like his sense of pacing.

Black Water flirts with sexism – or, at the very least, has an unforgivingly leering male gaze. The female characters, both of which have hot/cold relationships with Wheeler, find every excuse to change out of their tight shirts throughout the film. Both women are too young for Van Damme and it looks a little odd when they’re getting all twinkly-eyed in the presence of a half-asleep middle-aged man. One frankly laughable moment has Cassie Taylor take a bullet to the gut, then after lifting her shirt to dress the wound she is all better and barely seems to remember taking a bullet.

Dolph Lundgren is sadly wasted. He steals every scene he’s in, but there are unfortunately too few of them. Casting Dolph as a top-secret prisoner who enjoys literature, using his personal drawings as his cell’s wallpaper, and meditates to pass the time is amusing regardless of the story he finds himself in. It’s only later in the film that Wheeler decides to open Dolph’s cell in order to help even the odds that Dolph gets to do some stuff. Other prisoners are briefly glimpsed on security monitors but we never get to know them and as such the prison fails to come alive as a believable concept. It feels like the CIA is taking a submarine into international waters just to house two 80s action stars, which feels like a bit of a waste of government spending.

The surprisingly spacious sub interior only rarely ever actually resembles what we would accept as the inside of a submarine. I allowed it for a time, knowing they were working on a limited budget, but by the time they reached the sub’s control room I had to laugh. Not only is the sub apparently operated by only three people (not sure but that seems like not enough to me) but the control room is basically a windowless office with a couple computer screens and other tech doodads on the walls.

Van Damme’s performance is an odd one. One moment he looks like he’s trying another go at his brand of soulful, downbeat, introspective dramatic acting. The next moment he looks bored and barely there. And neither side of the performance fits the tone of the film. The script is better than you’d expect from what is a half-baked high-concept, low-budget prison movie, and most the cast appears to be into it. Kilpatrick is solid, Dolph made me laugh, Jasmine Waltz is likable, and Al Sapienza enjoys showing a bit of range. Van Damme appears to be the only one not having fun.

So, is it as good Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning… or is it bad like Kill ‘Em All? Well, it falls somewhere in between the two. I’m struck by the fact that with a bigger budget, sharper plot structure, better set design, and a more spirited leading man, this might’ve been something worth a hearty recommendation for action fans. As it is, though, Black Water plays like a less than stellar couple of episodes of 24, putting a bored Jack Bauer stand-in on a submarine so that he can be tortured by the CIA. Like the best/worst of 24, it has some cool, hard-edged action, but it also has its share of eye rolling silliness including moles, double crosses, and MacGuffins that we barely understand.

Kelly Warner’s Rating: 5/10