Pressure (DVD) – Movie Review
Four divers get stuck on the bottom of the Indian Ocean when a heavy storm detaches them from their ship. It’s the beginning of a story about survival, life and death. Who will survive? Who will die? There is only a limited supply of oxygen left, but who will be brave enough to risk their life for the team?
Four deep sea divers, Engel (Danny Huston), Mitchell (Matthew Goode), Jones (Joe Cole) and Hurst (Alan McKenna) are ordered to dive 400 meters below sea level to weld an oil pipeline. However, a heavy storm submerges and their submarine gets separated from their base. All connections are lost and the team will have to try and survive on a limited amount of oxygen until they hopefully get rescued. Spirits sink even lower when they find out that the vessel they were diving from has sunk and all crew has drowned. All there is left to do is to try and keep calm in order to save as much oxygen as possible, and hope that help is underway. As would be expected, this is easier said than done though.
The story moves at quite a steady pace, certainly so when considering that almost all of the scenes are shot within the very confined space of the submarine. Disaster strikes early in the movie, and from then on, it’s only the four of them. It isn’t easy to keep a movie interesting when all you have to work with is four men and very limited space. In the beginning lots of things are happening. During the storm, the camera is very shaky and lights are constantly on and off. That causes some disorientation, that might at the same time cause a slight headache. After that, the audience’s attention is kept by the men trying to do certain things in order to stay alive longer, and every now and then they tell a personal story. Somehow though, these stories just don’t bring the characters closer to the audience and don’t evoke much sympathy. Thus it didn’t really seem to matter who would survive and who wouldn’t.
Shots outside the submarine, in the wide Indian Ocean look very decent and convincing and are a welcome change from the scenes inside the submarine. Inside, the director often uses extreme close-ups, which is also a good way to add to the claustrophobic feel they try to create.
There are many predictable events in this movie, the fact that they will get stuck on the bottom of the ocean being just the most obvious one. The overall story development doesn’t hold that many surprises, it’s only the details that can still make for something interesting.
There is hardly any music to accompany the scenes, causing for the scenes to talk for themselves. This might be a strength, but could at the same time be a weakness. It is certainly a different approach to what we’re used to, but it feels as if it might have been easier to keep the audience’s interest with appropriate music. The song to accompany the end credits, Satellite by Joanna Wallfisch was a good choice to end the film with, leaving you wondering just a bit.
Acting performances are quite decent, but in combination with the often not so interesting dialogue and the limitedness of characters, it just didn’t suffice to keep the audience hooked.
There are no extras whatsoever on this DVD release. This is a bit sad, as it would have been fun and interesting to see how the film was made and which way special effects were filmed.
Conclusion
Although the idea of filming almost all scenes in one confined space is a very nice one, it is also very ambitious. In order for this setting to work, it’s important to work with fine actors and have a good dialogue. While the first one of these conditions has been fulfilled, the last one didn’t suffice. Character development wasn’t really there, causing the audience to not be particularly involved in the story. Furthermore, plot lines were quite predictable which meant that there wasn’t that much excitement concerning the story. Overall Pressure might be enjoyable enough to watch once, but after that it will probably never come off the shelf again.
Pressure (DVD) - Movie Review,
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