IR Film Review: CHUM [IFC]
"Chum" in many ways wants to be a play on "Jaws" with nods to "The Meg" on an independent budget. The background location set up is beautiful with Malta (increasingly pushing its film locations) built as the backdrop of a destination wedding between a lawyer and her soon-to-be activist husband. Things are not all right in paradise. But the night after the wedding, their friends rent a catamaran to lounge on the water, and hijinks ensue. Alice Eve plays Tina, the bride in question who is struggling with her own perspectives of life. The underlying thought of climate change of course brews below the surface here but the action focuses around a great white tormenting the waters in a spot that boasts to have no sharks. Not sure it is great for tourism in that way but it slowly becomes the untoward focus. A fisherman comes along after a mishap and things get a little darker.
The problem is that even though his reasons for the hunt make sense, the way this fisherman goes about it and the reckless violence does not. The shark kills (save for the first CG attack which definitely affected the suspension of disbelief), are actually pretty well done underwater. The first effects mistake though (which could have been easily corrected maybe with a cutaway) takes away from buying into the path. Again said fisherman is way over the top whereas Eve's Tina, the girl playing her sister and her now husband play it a little bit closer to the vest. Eve is trying but the material in most ways is very thin. But again this is supposed to be an adventure horror picture. Save for some interesting bone crunches now and again, it seems wildly uneven. There are some great opportunities for using drones and pacing up the action a bit but the execution comes off a little shoddy, especially in the vision of consequence. It s not like this needs to be Shakespeare but the characters, especially the villain moving things along, needs to be a little more believable. Revenge for revenge's sake has its place but this feels a little empty in the bloodlust, using its backdrop to its logical conclusion in a way but the narrative doesn't give it its full potential. D
By Tim Wassberg
