Into the Blue (2005 film)

Plot

A sea plane flying on a stormy night malfunctions and crashes in the sea off the coast of the Bahamas.

Jared and Sam are lovers living a rustic life in a trailer, next to the beach in the Bahamas. Sam works as a guide in the local aquatic theme park, while Jared works a number of odd jobs in his field of passion, diving. His real dream is to find one of many treasure-filled merchant and pirate ships lost in the waters around the Bahamas. Derek Bates has similar dreams and a better boat, but Jared turns down repeated offers to work for him.

Jared's brother, Bryce, and his girlfriend, Amanda (whom he just met the night before), come to visit. Bryce, a lawyer in New York City, has acquired the use of a luxury vacation house from a client he defended. While snorkeling, Jared finds artifacts on the sea bed that seem to stem from a ship wreck. The four of them investigate and find several other pieces that turn out to be the remains of legendary French pirate ship Zephyr. They also discover the crashed plane and its cargo of cocaine—Bryce and Amanda want to recover it, but Jared refuses, dispersing the brick they retrieved into the ocean.

Needing money for equipment to salvage the treasure, Bryce and Amanda dive to the plane then try to sell a few bricks of recovered cocaine to local night club owner Primo. Primo turns out to be an associate of drug lord Reyes, to whom the cocaine belonged in the first place.

Jared, Bryce, and Amanda are threatened by Reyes, who demands that they retrieve his cocaine or face deadly consequences. When the trio inform Sam, she berates Jared for violating his principles by helping a drug lord. He tries to explain the situation, but she leaves him, saying that 'they' are over. After nightfall, Jared, Bryce, and Amanda dive at the plane wreck to salvage the cocaine and more artifacts. As they are moving the cocaine packs from the plane to their boat, Amanda is attacked and bitten on the leg by a tiger shark. They abandon the cocaine at the dive site to rush her to the hospital, where she dies. Hearing of the tragedy, Sam reunites with Jared, mourning for the loss of Amanda.

Sam insists on going to the police, and goes to the home of one of their friends, a local cop named Roy. Roy turns her over to Derek Bates, knowing that he was Reyes' partner in the cocaine deal. Primo has captured Jared and taken him aboard Reyes' ship, where they find that Bates has killed Reyes and his entire crew, eventually killing Primo and Roy as well.

Jared and Bryce learn of Sam's captivity, and set out to rescue her from Bates' ship, now anchored over the cocaine plane. They kill Bates' divers at the plane, while their friend Danny helps Sam dispatch the men on Bates' boat. Below, Jared and Bates are the only ones left. Jared confronts Bates in the plane, eventually using an air tank as a missile by hammering off the valve. Bates dodges it, but it hits the fuel tank at the back of the plane, causing a major explosion, killing Bates. Sam jumps into the water and rescues Jared.

Six weeks later, the trio is salvaging the Zephyr. While trying to bring an old cannon to the surface, the rope breaks and the cannon sinks back down breaking a part of the ship. Jared is ready to call it a night, but Bryce dives in again and shouts that he has found gold.

Cast

Filming

The special features section of the DVD chronicles how much of the film was filmed as live action shots in the sea off the Bahamas, with live, wild sharks. It shows film crews wearing chain mail as protection whilst the cast perform in the water unprotected. The filming was made possible by the development of shark tourism in the Bahamas. The sharks are used to being hand fed and will not generally attack humans but as a result will grab any item that "hits" the water as potential food. In an early scene, Paul Walker has to grab two fins and a dive mask flung to him by Alba. During filming he missed the mask. It was never seen again after hitting the water and the DVD suggests that it was taken by a shark.

Box office

Into the Blue was a box office flop. Produced on a budget of $50 million, the film made just $18 million in North America and $26 million internationally for a total of $44 million worldwide.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes lists it with a "rotten" rating of 21% based on 119 reviews. The site's consensus is: "Even the endless shots of bronzed beach babes and buffed dudes can't keep this soggy scuba flick's plot from drowning". Metacritic lists a rating of 45 out of 100 based on 28 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".

Awards

Jessica Alba earned a nomination for Worst Actress at the 26th Golden Raspberry Awards for her performance in the film (as well as for her performance in Fantastic Four), but lost the trophy to Jenny McCarthy for Dirty Love.

Home media

Into the Blue was released on VHS and DVD-Video on December 26, 2005 and on Blu-Ray on August 15, 2006.

Soundtrack

Sequel

A sequel, Into the Blue 2: The Reef, was released direct to DVD in 2009. The cast consists of Chris Carmack, Laura Vandervoort, Audrina Patridge and Mircea Monroe.