BY substituting sharks for alligators, Thrash is a flagrant rip-off of 2019’s Crawl but it should definitely appeal to fans of cheesy disaster/survival movies despite this shameless pilferage.
Now streaming on Netflix, it throws everything from a catastrophic hurricane, calamitous tsunami and carnivorous sharks aplenty at the screen. Directed by Tommy Wirkola, this is a film I went into expecting very little from, but, to my surprise, I came away from it more than satiated.
When a Category 5 hurricane decimates a coastal town, the storm surge brings devastation, chaos, and something far more frightening by way of hungry bull sharks, and one colossally seething great white with an appetite for destruction. Rednecks are swallowed whole as the town is consumed by the sea, and with the outside world unable to gain access, the townsfolk’s only hope of staying alive is by going head to head with these gluttonous terrors.
Wirkola’s movie isn’t going to trouble the Academy Awards submission panel but as far as shark movies go, this is lots of trashy fun that can be taken with a pinch of salt and a heaped spoonful of chum meat-based lure. And what it lacks in razor-sharp choppers, it more than makes up for by way of action-packed daftness.
Like Crawl before it, this creature feature lacks originality or a plausible plot, the script is also floundering and the acting equally galumphing but, hey, its got squadrons of chompy sharks!
With a cast that includes Djimon Hounsou and Phoebe Dynevor, Thrash hits our screens with its tongue placed firmly in cheek. There’s an air of ridiculousness about it all, and the sharks, as many of them as there may be, are about as realistic as the Healy-Raes are dependable, and about as scary as a shoal of mackerel.
This fishy film is a ludicrous hoot that is definitely best enjoyed with eyebrow arched and brain switched to off.
(3/5)