Swim (2021) Review

Shark in the House: The Second Story

Swim (2021): 6 out of 10: The Asylum presents with Joey Lawrence as the star you can’t say I was not warned. Oh, it is a rip-off of Crawl.

Random Thoughts

Ok, so script wise, at least this looks pretty decent. On the other hand, we have a special effects failure right at the first shark attack. The shark fin just disappears instead of going back into the water and the gentleman involved was standing waste deep water or he was in forty feet of water depending on the angle and the what the director required even though our shark lunch didn’t move. But Lord knows I’ve seen worse and we’re doing ok so far.

The directors doing it again. He is filming the actors standing clearly in the surf. Then he does a shot where he shows the shark attacking in forty feet of water and goes back to the actors in the surf. Pick a lane Cohen.

Grandpa got run over by a Carcharhinus leucas.

Andy Lauer is playing the grandfather on the oxygen, and he is just awful. How old is he supposed to be, anyway? Mid fifties? Ninety? He is all over the place here. Also, what is with his speech cadence? He sounds like Sean Penn going full retard.

So why is grandpa making a heroic sacrifice? Don’t get me wrong. I’m in favor of him being eaten by the shark, but they have already have a girl with a paper cut on her leg that’s slowing them down, so it’s not like he slows them down additionally. Honestly, they just need to go upstairs. It is a shark, after all, not a flying piranha.

Why is he so old? The actor clearly is not that old. The character appears to be at best in his late fifties, but he acts as if he is on a day pass from the nursing home.

Strangely enough, the Sex in the City soft reboot/sequel thing And Just Like That.. got the same criticism for David Eigenberg’s take on Miranda’s Steve who, apparently in his mid-fifties, has hearing aids and walks like that one servant in the Pink Panther movies. There is a difference between fifties and eighties Hollywood.

Joey Lawrence will not be appearing in this film.

Swim is supposed to have Joey Lawrence as the star but since he’s driving down from San Francisco, the movie basically has decided not to allow Joey Lawrence to be in the movie. The movie seems very serious about not letting Joey Lawrence join the rest of the movie. I support this decision.

Pro-tip for Joey. usually people turn off their car before they leave it. I mean, I’m just putting that out there. You know not leaving it running with the windshield wipers going, that kind of thing.

Joey Lawrence has entered the movie, Joey Lawrence everyone. 

Joey Lawrence does eventually show up at the end, avoiding one of those Frank Sinatra in Cannonball Run II situations.

Despite the inability to figure out how much water the sharks are in and/or the size of the basement, which should not greatly differ whether we’re above or below water, the shark effects themselves are actually pretty good.

I think now as the family is just emotionally beating the shark with lamps, the shark being normal size shark and not some mega-shark with tentacles or anything, that’s a pleasant touch.

Airbnb from hell.

As somebody who rented an Airbnb for myself and my niece to go to my wife’s funeral in Connecticut, which, this is no exaggeration, would not have been out of place in a serial killer documentary. For one thing, they advertised it as 2 beds and 2 rooms and now we had one bed in 1 room, which can be an awkward situation when you’re traveling with your niece. This was only the beginning of the issues. So sympathy to the folks in this film with thier crappy shark infested beach rental.from the crappy beach house rental people.

In Conclusion:

You know if you’re an independent filmmaker and you think to yourself I’m going to make a movie and to make this movie; I need to rent a beach house on a sexy beach during sexy beach season. There are worse ways too, shall we say, spend your movie budget. It’s kind of like how everyone loves to make an Adam Sandler film because they all take place at a luxury resort in the Caribbean or Hawaii. Since we are doing random notes today, I would like to ask have you ever seen a movie on IMDB with no screenwriter listed? Swim has no screenwriter.

For a movie with no screenwriter, Swim has a decent story and script in the shark eats people genre at least. This is an entertaining film. Sure, sometimes the entertainment may not be a result of things they are doing well, but it is entertaining nevertheless. Which leads us to a drinking game that will kill you. The Jennifer Field Mouth agape drinking game.

The Jennifer Field phenomenon.

Every person, every reviewer and even random strangers on the street can all talk about that one thing. Jennifer Field’s habit of just having her mouth agape in every scene. She looks like the surprise winner of best oral scene at this year’s AVN Awards. So here is below is a tiny sampling.