Red Water (2005) Rated R Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips, Coolio, and Kristy Swanson Rating: out of

Red Water features such cinema lumenaries as Coolio, Kristy Swanson (the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Lou Diamond Phillips fighting a shark that has somehow found its way into the Louisiana bayou.

Phillips stars as John Sanders, a former oil rig driller who now works as a fisherman. Sanders is contacted by his ex-wife, Kelli (Kristy Swanson), who still works for the oil company, about a big natural gas site located inside a wildlife preserve. Apparently, this site is going to be a challenge to drill out and only Sanders can handle something so challenging. How an oil company allows itself to depend on the services of a down-on-his-luck fisherman I have no idea, but I digress. Sanders agrees and they travel up river to the drill site.

As Kelli dives for sediment samples, she runs across some crooks looking for some sunken money that was dumped into the river five years ago. Things get ugly and Kelli, John and the oil rig crew are taken hostage by the criminals, who are led by Coolio.

Where does the shark figure into this? Well, there's a bull shark that's found its way into the river somehow. We're never told how, but apparently he's been angered by the oil drilling and goes around killing random swimmers, fisherman and the occasional naturalist. The shark merely adds an element of danger to a rather routine (and badly acted) hostage drama.

Seeing Lou Diamond Phillips and Kristy Swanson in a production like this is somewhat sad. Both are above this material and hopefully only accepted the work because it looked like a better film in pre-production. Or maybe it was easy money. In any case, the only reason I gave the film two stars (as opposed to one) is that the animatronic shark effects are decent. The computer-generated sharks are simply horrible however.

If you're a compulsive shark movie fan, give Red Water a look. Just don't expect much shark action.

Trivia: The license plate on the sunken car is Louisiana 007-981 - the same one that Hooper pulled out of the shark in Jaws. (Source: The Internet Movie Database)