Shark Night

Shark Night
My wife and I went to see Shark Night 3D yesterday—we washed the awful taste out of our mouths by going to see The Debt immediately afterward, but that’s for another post at another time…maybe—and we both went in with close to zero expectations. And before I proceed, let me say that I am a guy who’s usually irritated when people say things like, “I can’t believe what I just saw! It’s 2011! Haven’t we moved past this?” Those people really get on my nerves because racism, sexism, and all other forms of discrimination (sexual preference, handicapped, financial, etc.) are all in abundance today. Only the naïve and stupid see it otherwise. So when i say, as I did last night on Twitter, that Shark Night 3D was the most racist and misogynistic movie I’ve seen in at least ten years, please know that I am not shocked by it. I knew what I was getting myself into; I just wanted to see sharks eating people. Too bad I didn’t really get to see that. There was only one real shot of sharks eating people.

Before I begin this review, let me say that the only reason I said “in at least ten years” is because I don’t think the point warrants the research/brain power necessary to think back over all the movies I’ve seen to figure out if it is the most racist and misogynistic movie I have ever seen. It might be, though.
OK. This movie was awful. Another point I made on Twitter is that it made Apollo 18 seem like Inception by comparison, and I thought Apollo 18 made The Blair Witch Project seem like Apocalypse Now. No hyperbole there. But there’s no way to discuss it without massive spoilers—if that matters to you for a movie like this. I don’t think people should see this movie anyway.

The plot of Shark Night 3D revolves around 7 Tulane students who are taking a trip to spend a weekend at Sara’s house, which is on a lake. Sara, you can tell from her first moment on screen, will survive—she’s pretty, thin, and blonde. She has a little pipsqueak voice (I told my wife that the only reason I knew she wasn’t Alexis Bledel with a dye job was that I would have noticed her name in the credits). Secondly, she has a dog. And she and the nerd boy, Nick, are in love with each other but afraid to actually talk to each other about it. So, yeah, from the jump you have to assume that Sara and Nick are the survivors.

The other 5 friends are Beth, the promiscuous tattoo addict; Blake, Beth’s dude-bro boyfriend; Gordon, the gamer who acts like he knows everything about women, but is the only person in this group without a pairing; Malik, the Negro student-athlete; and Maya, Malik’s Latina girlfriend.

A nameless blonde serves as the first shark victim as the opening credits close. Otherwise, yes, Malik and Maya are the first named shark victims in the movie. Before we get there, though, I have to tell you how we are introduced to Malik. In the first real scene of the film, we see Malik walking across the Tulane campus and into the dorm room that Nick and Gordon share. Malik gets into Nick’s face, looks menacing and confrontational, and explodes into a tirade about how Nick was supposed to be the best tutor on campus, how he can’t play if his grades don’t get better, and if his grades don’t get better and he can’t play, he’ll lose his scholarship and “You know what that means? It means back to the 4-1-0! Back to the 4-1-0!” It’s all joking, of course, because Malik actually got a B+, and this is cause for celebration, which includes going to Sara’s house for the weekend and Nick not studying for his MCAT’s. But, Malik is planning on proposing to Maya. When Gordon questions Malik about why a guy who’s “about to be a top 10 draft pick” is going to get married, Malik tells him, “Maya was down with me when I was poor, so she deserves to be with me when I’m ballin’.” I need someone to tell me why he’s concerned about keeping his scholarship when he’s about to be a top ten draft pick.

Even though these people go to school in New Orleans and Sara’s house is on Crosby Lake, Louisiana, the 7 students left Tulane in the daytime, drove through the night, and arrived at the house around dawn the next morning. OK, whatever…it’s just another thing, but it reaffirms how stupid this movie is. They pull into the local bait shop to get some snacks and liquor. Here, Maya serves her other purpose. She and Malik are outside by the car when a couple of locals, Dennis and Red, show up. “Must be nice,” Red says. “What?” she asks. “That they let the help sit up front.” Lovely guys, Dennis and Red. Of course Malik gets in their faces, and Dennis calls him “Boy,” but all is diffused with the beautiful and serene Sara shows up and recognizes the local guys.

When the young people arrive at the house, of course they hit the beach. Because he can’t ask the woman about herself, Nick asks Malik about Sara. “I’ve known her 3 years, and I’ve never seen here with a guy,” Malik tells him. “Just her and her dog.” Sara, our virginal queen. We learn later what had been bothering Sara for 3 years, why she hadn’t been with a guy and hadn’t been back to the lake in that time. She was Dennis’ diving student and girlfriend—yes, that Dennis—and she was caught underwater and couldn’t breathe. She panicked, and saw him treading still and not helping her. He was watching her drown to death and did nothing to help her. She called out to him for help, and he did not move. She managed to save herself, and when trying to get out of the water, accidentally cut his face with a rotor blade (I’m not sure how exactly that happened, but I take the story at face value). This causes Dennis to hate her, causes her years of guilt, and leads her to apologize to him. What in the misogynistic White male privilege hell? How in the world is Sara the bad guy in that scenario? And why did the filmmakers portray her guilt as reality and not just Dennis’ psychotic misperception. He tried to kill her!

Anyway, back to Malik. He goes water skiing and loses his arm to a shark. Only he knew it was a shark, but he’s in too much shock to speak. Everyone thought he just fell and was run over by the boat. They are stranded at the house with no cell reception—and no landline?—so Nick swims into the lake, finds the severed arm (don’t ask me how he found the arm or why it wasn’t eaten), sees a shark, swims back by outracing it to the shore, applies a tourniquet to Malik’s stump, then drives a boat with Sara and Maya to take Malik to the hospital. Unfortunately, Malik’s blood dripped into the water and attracted a shark that knocked Maya into the water, ate her, and eventually destroyed the boat.

Amazingly, our old friends Dennis and Red arrived and volunteered to go somewhere to call a helicopter to come pick Malik up. Beth wanted off the island and volunteered to go with them. Gordon wanted to be Beth’s big, strong man, so he volunteered to tag along and keep her safe. While they’re gone, Malik woke up, found out Maya was gone, found a spear somewhere in the house, and swam out into the lake. “This is how West Baltimore does it!” was his battle cry. (Quick aside: so this guy is clearly in college to play sports, left West Baltimore for New Orleans, and all his friends are White? As they say on Twitter, wheredeydodatat?) Malik actually finds and kills a shark, but a different species than the one Nick had seen.

Meanwhile, Dennis and Red reveal to Gordon and Beth that they are responsible for bringing sharks into the lake. And then they kill Gordon and Beth. Blake straps Malik to a jet-ski and tries to make it to a hospital. Malik sees a shark and sacrifices himself to save Blake. But he dies too. In the end, only the virginal king and queen survive, and the whole ordeal took place because Dennis, Red, and the sheriff were upset with Sara for leaving Dennis, leaving home, and going to college where they do all that learning and enlightenment crap.

This movie’s gotta go.

Don’t worry…the dog lives.