“Thrash” is an aggressively stupid movie. And I like well-done, aggressively stupid movies. Much to the disappointment of a critic who was actually pretty excited for a movie that combined sharks with a hurricane, this ain’t one. Its worst sin isn’t its stupid characters doing stupid things; it’s that the whole thing feels remarkably lazy, failing to find any tension or even B-movie thrills. You can insult my intelligence within the world of a film, but not in the actual filmmaking, if that makes sense. This movie sure doesn’t.
Once produced by Sony for a loud theatrical release before being dumped off for a quiet Netflix one, this year’s “Under Paris” or “Sharknado” is the truly ridiculous “Thrash,” a “Sharkicane” movie from the director of “Dead Snow.” If you’ve seen the work of Tommy Wirkola, you know what to expect: A lot of tongue-in-cheek, self-aware writing that’s really just the tendons connecting the good, gory stuff. Although it can’t even close that deal. Sure, body parts turn into shark snacks, but it’s mostly just a bunch of flailing in red water, battling unseen enemies. Stunningly, “Thrash” is boring, only finding a couple of interesting visuals to alleviate the ludicrous nature of it all.
As Wirkola’s film is about to open, Hurricane Henry is bearing down on a small coastal town, a storm so threatening that an expert says they should consider a “Category 6” to define it. (I’ll admit that made me laugh.) The concept is very simple: The storm breaks the levees on the edge of town, the ocean rushes down the streets, the storm surge rises, and sharks work their way inland in search of food.
Before the bloodshed, Wirkola introduces us to a cast of survivors and victims, led by “Fair Play” star Phoebe Dynevor as Lisa Fields, a very pregnant woman who gets trapped in the hurricane after the levees break. Not only is Lisa a full 9 months pregnant, but one of her early lines of dialogue is talking about water birth, and she works at a meatpacking plant. Again, this sounds fun, and the B-movie nature of the set-up is, which makes the lack of follow-through even more disheartening.
One of Wirkola’s biggest mistakes is that he diffuses his narrative. Alexandre Aja’s “Crawl” worked so well because it stayed focused, trapping us in its protagonist’s survival story. This one jumps from Lisa to Dale Edwards (Djimon Hounsou), a marine researcher who heads into town by boat to save his agoraphobic niece, Dakota (Whitney Peak), who becomes one of Lisa’s only possible lifelines. While these characters eventually intersect, the same can’t be said for the Olsen kids, Dee (Alyla Browne), Ron (Stacy Caulsen), and Will (Dante Ubaldi). They live with a pair of awful foster parents, who hoard the steaks paid for by the welfare checks they get for the kids, giving them barely enough to survive. In other words, shark food.
Bafflingly, and I guess this is a spoiler, Lisa’s arc and that of the Olsen kids never intersect. It’s as if Wirkola started two projects about a Shark-icane, presuming he would settle on one and then just mashed them together. It diffuses the tension in one half of the film, constantly jumping to the other half at inopportune moments, sometimes during attacks. It’s a baffling decision that drains “Thrash” of any potential momentum.
The real struggle of “Thrash” becomes watching decent performers battle Wirkola’s worst instincts as a filmmaker. Dynevor has an ability to be present, to sell her predicament in a way that could be truly effective in a better movie; Hounsou has always grounded everything he’s ever done, and he doesn’t misstep here, even if you can sometimes sense that he wishes he were in a better movie. Sometimes, even great actors have to pay the bills with a Sharkicane flick, but that doesn’t mean you need to waste your time.
