Red Water is one of those movies that can definitely be classified as a B-Movie. No doubt about that. The average rating for this film is 3, which is a shame, because this movie wasn't that half bad. (To me) Red Water has a pretty original plot. It features a small Louisiana river that is suddenly plagued by a twelve-foot freshwater shark known as a Bull Shark. The shark begins killing all sorts of people, when it is finally driven upriver where it encounters a small oil rig that has recently hit it big. Lou Diamond Phillips is the lead, who speaks in a southern accent, plays the kind John, who hates oil rigs because he feels responsible for the deaths of four men due to a blowout at a rig he was once managing. So, his ex-wife, played by Kristi Swanson, and his friend go to take a look at the said rig, which suddenly becomes the subject of armed thugs who are looking for dumped money nearby.First of all, it's a made-for-television movie. The special effects and acting won't be that good. However, they manage to get a pretty good anamatronic Bull Shark in there, a decent set, and a decent cast. (I know that the acting is bad, but I've seen worse.) It has some pretty big names, such as Lou Diamond Phillips, Krisit Swanson, and Coolio.Red Water isn't that bad. Sure, some of the cast sucks, but the three big name leads aren't that bad, and are pretty convincing at times. They have feelings just like everybody else. The drunk scenes featuring the two thugs are sort of funny, since they mock each other. Red Water has some pretty disturbing scenes, like a pretty teenage girl who ALMOST makes it to safety before she is gobbled up kind of gorily, just like an elderly fisherman. Adding action to sharks works fairly well here. The CGI towards the end sucks, but the effects shark wise are above-average for a TV movie. The shark is pretty convincing when it is anamatronic. And the shark death is creative, just like the Jaws movies. Also, they appear to get back together at the end of the movie, and it has a happy and satisfying ending. Is it perfect? No. I've seen much better. MUCH better. It's real campy, some of the performances suck, but it's pretty suspenseful and keeps you interested in what's going on. It isn't worse than Jaws the Revenge, or Jaws 3, which is sort of obvious, since it has a higher rating than them, and they had budgets of 20,000,000 dollars and more. Above-average movie done on a small budget.I hear it's even better to get drunk and watch it on "crappy movie night". =D

For me the highlight of the movie was the very short snippet of music they played just as Ms Swansen makes her appearance.(can't seem to find who it was by though) I don't know why, but I never seem to feel for the characters in these U.S movies. When Phillips relayed his hard luck story I thought we had jumped into a Leslie Nilson Parody. They could have all got eaten for all I cared, there was nobody there I would miss.Being under water with no air is at least as scary as the shark, but they didn't make much about that. In life people change from good to bad and back to good again with each passing moment, but not in This movie, a gangster is a gangster and a fisherman ain't ever gonna become the skipper.do we all get so easily confused if people change sides. As usual I could have told you at the beginning of the movie who would survive and who wouldn't. The effects were good enough, especially for anyone who grew up with Gerry Anderson shows on Saturday mornings,and movies where the monster was always just outside the screen shot. but if you're not already sat on the edge of your seat before the monster appears then no amount of effects will save the movie.An extra couple of hours to go over the script, put in some humour and some 'real people things' Oh and a little more of the decent music, and This 3 star movie could have been an 8+ on the same budget.

Red Water is set in the Louisiana swamps & rivers where a company has set up a mini drilling platform & are searching for oil, meanwhile environmentalist Dr. Kelli Raymond (Kirsty Swanson) has hired John Sanders (Lou Diamond Phillips) her ex-husbands fishing boat to take her to the rig so she can conduct some tests to see what effect the drilling is having on the local wildlife. To complicate things further two gangsters Ice (Coolio) & Brett (Langly Kirkwood) are searching for 3 million dollars in stolen drug money in the same stretch of river & if that wasn't enough there's an angry killer man eating Bullshark swimming around that was hurt in an explosion set off by the oil rig workers. One thing leads to another, people get eaten, people get greedy & when it all kicks off someone has to save the day...Executive produced & directed by Charles Robert Carner this is a pretty bad film although I have to say if you go into it in the right frame of mind there are a few laughs to be had here. The script by J.D. Feigelson & Chris Mack doesn't seem to take itself too seriously & at least it moves along at a nice pace so it's not boring & generally speaking there's always something happening but there are so many plot holes, ridiculous scenes & bad dialogue that you really can't take the film seriously. For a start how did a car end up at the bottom of an isolated Louisiana river? Would someone who makes a living as a fisherman on a boat really not be able to swim? I mean wouldn't being able to swim be a job requirement? Steel cranes don't just suddenly collapse for no reason. The drill blows up but then is suddenly & miraculously repaired & in perfect working order again at the end. Could someone really find a gun at the bottom of a river in the middle of the night when they don't even know where it is? There are other bit & pieces I could mention but I think you get the point. Then there's the character's who are all pretty clichéd, from Lou Diamond Phillips courageous hero to the slimy money hungry company executive & the terrible stereotypical urban gangster that is Coolio with baggy clothes, a bad attitude & a gun. As I said Red Water is decent for a few laughs but anyone looking for another Jaws (1975) this is a millions from it.Director Carner does OK on what was probably a low budget, he doesn't direct with much pace or excitement though & as a result it's not scary, it has no tension & it's all a bit flat. For some reason the shark seems to take a back seat for most of the film as the hidden money gets more screen time, there's also a green environmental message of the moral variety here as well but there's no great subtly about it & it's nothing we haven't seen before. Forget about any gore, there's some blood & a severed arm but that's about it.Made-for-TV this is meant to be set in Louisiana but was in fact filmed in South Africa & the free holiday was probably the main reason the likes of Diamond Phillips, Kirsty Swanson & Coolio wanted anything to do with it. It's reasonably well made I suppose, the special effects aren't great especially the GCI shark which for most of the time looks pretty rubbish.Red Water is a pretty bad film for sure, so bad it's good film lovers will probably like it though & I thought it was worth a few laughs. Personally I think you could do worse but at the same time you could do better.

This was an interesting story about Oil Diggers and crooks looking for a treasure that needed to be recovered years ago and how all these different characters managed to be bumping heads in the same location. Lou Diamond Phillips, (John Sanders), was running into money problems with his fishing boat and was divorced from his wife, Kristy Swanson, (Dr. Kelli Raymond), who was built in all the right places. There are fight scenes between John Sanders and Kelli, but Kelli decides she needs the help of her ex-husband to sail them to this oil rig location. There are plenty of bad dudes they will have to encounter, namely, Coolie (Ice) who gives and outstanding performance as a real Bad A-S. There is plenty of explosions and lots of excitement going on and you begin to wonder if anyone will ever live or die. Nice entertainment and a film you really could forget about entirely.