NR | 1h 36m | Thriller | 2026
Don’t blame the sharks. They act on instinct, especially when the shark tour guide chums the waters. You can’t really fault crusty Captain Logan (Timothy V. Murphy) either, because his shark cage properly protects divers. Instead, you can blame the drug smugglers sharing his shark cruise, because they can’t help bringing their thuggish behavior aboard in Jesse V. Johnson’s “Above and Below.”
This is supposed to be a fun vacation for Tatiana (Laura Marano) and her group: generic boyfriend TJ (Donncha Tynan), her debt-laden, recovering addict brother Kyle (Diego Llinas), her fun-loving best friend Kayle (Christina Ochoa), and Kayle’s equally generic boyfriend, Danny (Ryan Betroche).
Yet there is already tension simmering within the group because Tatiana intends to dump TJ and also because Kyle is a loser who annoys everyone. True to form, he drops all his money in a high-stakes poker game with the shadowy Burns (Antonio Banderas).
After listening to Kyle’s sob story at the table, Burns takes pity on the loser, offering him a free private shark tour the next day, as a consolation.
Unbeknown to Kyle, Burns is a drug lord whose couriers, Garrison (Jess Liaudin) and Martin (Louis Mandylor), will join their excursion. Garrison looks intimidating, but conducts himself in a laidback manner. In contrast, manic Martin cannot resist his urge to bully the innocent tourists.
Martin’s negligence leads to a mix-up of bags, revealing their illicit cargo. Burns is not happy when he has a rendezvous with the boat. He is even less happy when Martin fatally shoots TJ, who then jumps off the boat with a designer duffel full of high-grade narcotics; he sinks to a watery grave, right in front of Tatiana and Kayle.
Trapped in a shark cage with limited oxygen, the two women must figure out a plan to survive. Through the intercom, Burns eventually issues his ultimatum: Retrieve his drugs from the shark-infested waters—or else.
“Above and Below” is one of the few shark attack thrillers that never casts the predators in a truly monstrous light. It is not their fault that they feast on Captain Logan’s passengers. That is just what they do when a bleeding body falls into the water.
The culpability lies squarely on Burns and his henchmen. Admittedly, that does not make the sharks any less dangerous for Tatiana and Kayle while they are trapped in the submersible cage. But it should earn the film a bit of credit from marine biologists and shark conservation advocates.
Even if “Above and Below” avoids the worst cliches of “sharkploitation,” it still very definitely counts as a B-level thriller. It boasts a great deal of genre experience, starting with Johnson, who previously helmed some of Scott Adkins’s best martial arts spectacles, including “Accident Man” and “Avengement.”
He also helmed two episodes of “The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of Merlin,” the excellent Christian-themed Arthurian fantasy that premiered on Daily Wire+.
Johnson has a talent for executing big action on a limited budget. In this case, he successfully balances the peril unfolding on both sides of the waterline.
Colorful Support
“Above and Below” also benefits from several colorful supporting characters, who far outshine the boring young tourists whom viewers are supposed to root for. Murphy previously appeared in Johnson’s “Hell Hath No Fury”; he’s appropriately salty and surprisingly sympathetic as Captain Logan, who bitterly resents Burns’s hold over him.Louis Mandylor (who co-starred in Johnson’s “Debt Collector” duology) is aptly creepy as the resentful and belligerent Martin. French martial artist Jess Liaudin provides an imposing presence as Garrison. Disappointingly, Johnson never has the opportunity to capitalize on his hand-to-hand combat skills.
While his heroic “Zorro” leading man status might be in decline, Banderas seems content to segue into villainous roles, judging from his gusto chewing the scenery as Burns. Whether berating his henchmen or turning up the fake, smarmy charm, Banderas clearly aims to entertain, with roguish flair.
In contrast, Tatiana and her friends and family are a dull and colorless lot. Frankly, only Llinas’s portrayal of little brother Kyle stands out to any extent, due to his cringy, self-destructive behavior.
Arguably, the sharks have more personality than the rest of their tour group. The footage of the marine predators certainly looks menacing, but it is often unclear where they are relative to the cage divers.
Johnson keeps the pacing snappy, while screenwriter Anthony Steven Giordano’s dialogue has above-average sharpness.
Of course, “Above and Below” cannot compete with a classic like the original 1975 “Jaws,” or even its better “homages,” such as “The Meg.” Its flaws are numerous, but it is a scrappily grabby viewing experience, in an unpretentious drive-in summer-movie kind of way.
Recommended as an amusing, largely brain-free popcorn movie.
