PAUL WALKER STARRING 'INTO THE BLUE' WITH ASHLEY SCOTT

The late Paul Walker faces Ashley Scott and Scott Caan in INTO THE BLUE

A combination of THE DEEP, centering on an American skin-diving couple living in the Bahamas, and JAWS, for obvious reasons, INTO THE BLUE has steamy Noir elements and, putting the gorgeous location, daring stunts and real killer fish aside, it’s a completely worthwhile character-driven vehicle.

Paul Walker’s lean, resilient Jared is built for the sea… With his girlfriend Sam, played by Jessica Alba, they’re the perfect match. Honest and hardworking, Jared’s constantly on the verge of going broke yet still wants nothing to do with his former boss, Josh Brolin’s Bates, a big money treasure hunter so charming and shifty you know he’s hiding something for later on.

Scott Caan as Bryce in INTO THE SEA

The real instigator is one of the good guys… Scott Caan as Bryce, a young slick lawyer, lights a spark right off the bat, supplying not only one of his client’s mansions but a boat that, unlike Jared’s vessel, actually floats.

Along with his brand new girlfriend Amanda, Bryce is the character who could make enough vapid mistakes, or perhaps just one, to put the group’s lives in jeopardy, but only after a fleshed-out first half replete with beautiful free-diving scenes involving a sunken pirate ship and, close by, an sunken airplane loaded with bags of cocaine.

Paul Walker as Jared and Scott Caan as Bryce

Bryce, despite his knee-jerk decisions and a stubborn drive for a fast buck, still comes around to Jared’s logical way of thinking… It would be crazy to sell the cocaine for enough money to figure a way to legally dig up the pirate ship… Or would it?

Some of Paul Walker’s best moments occur when he's arguing with Caan... Both actors, friends in real life, have terrific chemistry and keep the story rolling, especially during the first hour. The late FAST AND FURIOUS actor wields an energetic passion that feels both intense and genuine. But for the story’s sake, it takes our sexy femme fatalle to really get things rolling…

Ashley Scott adds spice and intrigue as Amanda

While Jessica Alba is stalwart and daring, scene-stealer Ashley Scott’s Amanda is the unpredictable wild card of the group… Since you never quite know where she stands or what she's thinking, Scott injects an edgy Noir vibe into this otherwise mainstream thriller. Her flirtatious double-dealing with local drug traffickers becomes the real game-changer...

The cocaine belongs to a not-so-surprising lead villain, and the third act gets a bit convoluted as the surviving cast, trying to dig up the gold in time, are fully masked and, no longer free-diving, it’s hard to tell the characters apart. Like the finale of the Bond classic THUNDERBALL, there are simply too many unrecognizable cooks in the soup for the audience to keep score down there...

Jessica Alba and Paul Walker comfortably donning swimwear

According to BLUE CRUSH director John Stockwell, who began as an actor in films like CHRISTINE and TOP GUN and is partial to making sea-set, bikini-clad melodramas with the word blue in them, they used very little computer effects; the actors and actresses had to swim around with real tiger sharks…

Keep this in mind while watching and/or re-watching this neat oceanic thriller… It makes the whole trip that much better, while the gorgeous location and cutthroat (albeit toned down for a PG-13 rating) action sequences justify too many extreme close-ups and the sporadic use of corny dialogue – although the pulpy stuff just might have been intentional.

One of many actual tiger sharks... There could have been a shark union for this movie

Jessica Alba remains the most centered character...

Proof of a male director

year: 2005 cast: Paul Walker, Jessica Alba, Scott Caan, Ashley Scott, Josh Brolin