‘Above and Below’ Review: Even Sharks And The Mafia Fail To Add Thrills To This Survival Drama

What if a holiday turned into a fight for survival with danger lurking both above and below? That is the deliciously simple hook of “Above & Below”, a survival thriller currently streaming on Lionsgte, that throws a group of friends into a nightmare involving a ruthless cartel, dwindling oxygen and Great White sharks. On paper, it sounds like the kind of movie that should have audiences gripping their seats from the opening frame to the closing credits.

And then the movie begins. The premise is almost impossible to resist. Tatiana (Laura Marano) and her friends head to Mexico for what is supposed to be a fun getaway, only for the trip to spiral into a dangerous encounter with criminals led by Burns (Antonio Banderas). Before long, Tatiana and Kaley (Christina Ochoa) find themselves in an increasingly desperate fight for survival, with threats coming from both sides. Above them are armed criminals. Below them are sharks. Their oxygen supply is limited. The situation practically writes its own adrenaline-fuelled thriller.

Even the title “Above & Below” gets it exactly right. It immediately tells audiences what kind of ride they are signing up for. There is danger above, danger below and seemingly nowhere to go.

Related Stories

‘Up Against It’ Review: Antonio Banderas Stars in a British Family Dramedy That Ignores Its Own Conundrums

Even the title “Above & Below” gets it exactly right. It immediately tells audiences what kind of ride they are signing up for. There is danger above, danger below and seemingly nowhere to go.

That makes the film's biggest problem all the more frustrating: the idea is considerably better than the execution.

The premise constantly creates possibilities in the viewer's mind. What could happen next? How far can things escalate? What happens when the sharks become an even bigger threat? Can the characters outsmart the people controlling them? The setup keeps promising a breathless survival adventure, but the filmmaking rarely matches the tension that the story seems capable of generating.

The performances don't help.

Banderas' Burns is supposed to be the intimidating force behind the criminal operation, but the performance often feels more cartoonish than menacing. There is very little about Burns that makes him seem like the formidable drug lord the characters are supposedly terrified of. Instead of creating the feeling that this is a man who has built a dangerous criminal empire, the character often feels like he has wandered in from a much broader action movie.

That takes away from the stakes. If the central villain doesn't feel particularly threatening, the danger surrounding the protagonists begins to feel artificial.

Marano, meanwhile, gets the film's most demanding role. Tatiana is constantly trying to figure out how to survive, making decisions and coming up with strategies to deal with threats both above and below the water. Marano commits to the physical demands of the role, but the characterisation never quite makes those survival choices feel convincing enough. There is also a sense that the movie is never really going to let anything happen to its central character, which takes some of the uncertainty out of a story that desperately needs it.

And that is the strange thing about “Above & Below”. The characters don't necessarily need to deliver awards-season performances. This is a survival thriller, after all. But when the entire movie depends on audiences believing that these people are genuinely trapped in an impossible situation, even the basic emotional beats need to land. Too often, they don't.

The result is a movie where the situation is more compelling than the people stuck inside it.

There are flashes of the film that “Above & Below” could have been. The combination of sharks, criminals, confined spaces and limited oxygen is inherently exciting. The movie has all the ingredients for a tense, pulpy survival thriller and a premise that could have supported some genuinely nerve-racking sequences.

Instead, it settles for being an okay one-time watch.

There is certainly enough here to keep the story moving, and the central concept is strong enough to make the film watchable. But by the time the credits roll, the overriding feeling is not that the premise didn't work. It is that the filmmakers simply didn't do enough with it.

“Above & Below” has danger above, danger below and a fantastic idea right in the middle. Unfortunately, the execution never rises to meet the promise of the premise.