Pressure

This movie was part of my B movie genre one afternoon. I usually am not the thriller type, I typically prefer more action adventure oriented (Deep Star 6, The Abyss etc...) There were elements that reminded me of Das Boot. However I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it. The Good: The acting was surprisingly good, the script writing was good, the effects were good. The Bad: The plot is a little predictable at times, but this is just an adaptation of Lifeboat. Character development could have been a little better, I didn't feel as invested in any of the characters as I felt I should have. Generally I did enjoy it, I probably will not watch is again, but I would recommend it to anyone

I don't know enough about deep-sea diving to comment on the veracity of the portrayal . A lot of it was difficult to believe. As a whole the story was well acted , especially Danny Huston.

This movie is not terrible, it's empty. It is a low budget one, where not much happens and the little that happens is stretched into an hour and a half of length.

It seems more a movie for television then for the cinema. You do not enter into the role of any character and there are no major twists and is also fairly predictable. With a little more development it would be more interesting.

However, while not completely boring and while having a minimum of (uninteresting) suspense, I can not recommend it, unless you've just nothing else to see.

The real nice thing to watch here is the movie poster.

5/10

I did not enjoy this movie for the price of $6.99

The plot is predictable and shallow, the acting is subpar, and production felt thrown together like it was made in a Olympic sized pool with little thought given to making it feel deep, dangerous, and under pressure. Flashing lights in the "bell", shaking camera work, character development jumping around forcing you to care about their pasts like it matters ( it doesn't) and all the way to the end felt like 100% cliché. Don't waste the cash on this one, wait for it to come on the local cable. Im not a critic, but I watch 2-3 movies every single night.. I made an account just to review this movie and warn others that it is not worth spending money to watch.

It is NOTHING like the Abyss, and far from Black Sea ( and I didn't exactly love that one either, but Id watch it twice over this once).

I predicted everything that happened in this movie, rolled my eyes nonstop and said out loud several times.. how is this film $6.99!!??

"Pressure" concerns a group of men (Danny Huston, Matthew Goode, Joe Cole, and Ian Pirie), who are submerged in the depths of the Indian Ocean in a small submarine to replace an oil pipeline. However, once their submarine malfunctions, the crew are separated from their base and stuck in the deep waters with no connection to their base and oxygen levels running dangerously low. To survive, the men must conserve their energy and their air in hopes that a rescue team hasn't completely abandoned them in the ocean.

"Pressure" is one of the first films in quite sometime to have the gall to take place in one setting, effectively trapping the audience, much like the characters, in a tight, claustrophobic space, giving the audience the feeling of helplessness and peril. The great thing about these films is they open rely on tension and character development being that the setting isn't changing, so new environments and interactions aren't always being set up. The downside to this, however, is that when films to choose to focus on stunted dialog and lax character development, these films generally begin to become uninteresting.

Such a thing happens with "Pressure;" we have four characters, two of which played by veteran actors, and not a shred of human interest to be found. The characters predominately speak in stunted expressions about wanting to be rescued or argue amongst themselves, and when we do begin to learn about their own personal histories, there's little in the way of conversational realism to attach us.

The film does feature some very nice effects work, specifically on the water and the atmosphere engulfing the ship. The waters are a lighter indigo-color, murky and unrelenting, and scenes when some of the men venture out of the submarine in attempt to swim to shore really exploit the capable effects work in this film. Director Ron Scalpello also manages to create some discernible intensity with the film by having medium-length, extreme close-ups on the faces of the trapped men inside the submarine. While "Pressure" make lack narratively, and have little to grip one in terms of human interest, there's at least a commendable focus on the aesthetics in an attempt to try and create a tense setting.

Above all, however, the real bother is a serious lack of any character to root for or invest in, which makes "Pressure"'s slender runtime of eighty-eight minutes rather grueling to sit through. The characters are almost entirely vapid, the tension is sporadic and sometimes wholly ineffective, the pace finds itself simultaneously working in a slowburn and a slam-bang manner, and the overall impact is middling to say the least.