Dead in the Water

This is another of those films that I added to my Netflix queue years ago and steadily moved up the path. I estimate that I added it after I watched Dominique Swain in the remake of Lolita, since Dead in the Water and another film she made, Tart, were next to each other in my queue.

Swain stars as a spoiled daughter of a Brazilian rich guy who reveals to her he's not so rich, and is being kept afloat and out of jail by the Brazilian counterpart to "Al Capone and Donald Trump," which considering what's going in 2016 was an interesting line. She is asked to take this man's son out for a boating excursion, along with Scott Bairstow, her boyfriend, and Henry Thomas, a friend who really is in love with Swain.

The film is something of a remake of Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water, with one extra person. Bairstow and Thomas catch the son making out with Swain, and throw him overboard and drive off to teach him a lesson. But then they can't find them, and each of the three start turning on each other.

Dead in the Water isn't a bad film, and it's not easily predictable (although the opening shot is a mistake and that gives away too much). There's a nice twist at the end, and the location shooting off the coast of Brazil is a novelty. It's the kind of movie that if you find on cable during an attack of insomnia would keep you diverted for an hour and a half.

And yes, Dominique Swain is hot.