DVD Slight Return: Dorsal Fin Edition
Maybe it was the luck of the draw. One film – The Shallows – gets a big summer release, while another film that explores the same subject, and is possibly the more suspenseful of the two, gets a release straight to disc (and also On Demand). In the Deep (Anchor Bay, 8/2) follows the inadvertent adventures of two femmes trapped underwater when their shark cage snaps loose from the tour boat. Mandy Moore and Claire Holt are the two sisters whose sea expedition becomes a nightmare, with Matthew Modine as the cranky skipper of the boat.
The entire movie constantly cranks up the anxiety with a constant wave of terror from either running out of oxygen or a shark that is stalking them. Their only chance for survival is to leave the safe confines of their cage and attempt to swim to the surface, and time is running out.
I come not to praise Gibby (Shout! Factory, 8/2) but to ponder its existence. Gibby is the name of the lead actor, which happens to be a capuchin monkey. I could’ve sworn that this clever scene-stealing animal was the same capuchin from American Pie (1999). And I was right – but Crystal (the monkey’s real name) has been a mainstay of cinema with multiple roles in movies including The Hangover Part II (Drug Dealing Monkey) and the Night at the Museum (Dexter) series. If you like animals that act this is your bromide. Otherwise the lame plot involves a teenage gymnastic competition and skews a purely little girl audience.
A Monster With A Thousand Heads (Music Box Films, 8/9) feels ripped from current headlines. From Mexico, director Rodrigo Plá (La zona) gets a superlative performance from Jana Raluy as a distraught wife whose husband has been denied medicine for his cancer treatment by an uncaring health system.
Raluy takes the head of the hospital hostage at gunpoint, and when that doesn’t yield results she goes up the ladder to the owner of the drug company. Plá flashes forward with audio from courtroom testimony that the viewer assumes depicts the aftermath of the hostage situation. This could be any country and any family that gets the short end of the stick when battling the establishment. In fact the film loosely resembles the 2024 Nick Cassavetes film John Q, where Denzel Washington takes a hospital emergency room hostage when his son is refused a life saving operation.
