NO WAY UP
(director: Claudio Fäh; screenwriter: Andy Mayson; cinematographer: Andrew Rodger; editor: Adam Recht; music: Andy Gray; cast: Grace Nettle (Rosa), Sophie McIntosh (Ava), Phyllis Logan (Mardy), Colm Meaney (Brandon), Will Attenborough (Kyle), Jeremias Amoore (Jed), James Carroll Jordan (Hank), Scott Coker (Liam-Pilot), David Samartin (Eli-Pilot), Manuel Pacific (Danilo, airline stewardess); Runtime: 90; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Will Clarke, Molly Conners, Annalise Davis, Mike Runagall, Andy Mayson; RLJE Films; 2024)
“Trashy B-film survival thriller that to its credit shows great shark kills.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Claudio Fäh (“Sniper: Ultimate Kill”/”Northmen: A Viking Saga”) directs this trashy B-film survival thriller that to its credit shows great shark kills. If nothing else, it shows it might be wacky but is efficiently made. It’s written with stilted dialogue but with action pic skill by Andy Mayson, who is determined to make it a serious film that’s both scary and exciting, as he plots how the few plane survivors come out alive of a plane crash after landing alive in the sea.
On a short flight, a group of diverse vacationers are survivors from a plane crash (why it crashes is not revealed) from LAX to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. They are trapped on a rocky ledge, in an air pocket near the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, with their air supply running low, and are threatened by sharks in the plane.
They must choose to either try a daring escape of swimming to the surface or stay put in the air pocket fending off the swarming sharks.
The film’s tagline is ‘Sharks on a Plane.’
On the plane are the capable stewardess (Manuel Pacific), the young adult daughter of a California governor, Ava (Sophie McIntosh), accompanied by her protective bodyguard Brandon (Colm Meaney), courtesy of her father, and her dull engineer boyfriend Jed (Jeremias Amoore) and their obnoxious, in the closet, wisecracking friend, Kyle (Will Attenborough).
Ava befriends the 10-year-old Rosa (Grace Nettle), who is traveling with her grandparents (James Carroll Jordan & Phyllis Logan). Her granny, we note, is a former Army medic.
The film is low-tech and realistically implausible. But it has a blast showing how the survivors fend off the sharks while fighting for their lives.
If you absolutely love shark survival thrillers you might also like this flawed one. Even though it has some thrills, you should know it has little suspense despite the dangerous situation it creates.
REVIEWED ON 3/4/2024 GRADE: C+