Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 46 minutes, Director – Brian Duffield
Whilst searching for his father’s (Josh Brolin) remains, diver Jay (Austin Abrams) is swallowed by a sperm whale, with limited oxygen left to escape.
There’s a moment in the trailer for Whalefall that stood out as ridiculous amongst the possibility of an otherwise tense claustrophobic escape thriller. The sperm whale that Austin Abrams’ diver Jay is swallowed by juts out from the water for a short moment, Jay has seemingly almost escaped and could otherwise make a quick exit through the creature’s mouth if it weren’t for it being horizontal. Peering through and seeing daylight he screams for help in the hope a passing boat will hear him. In the film the moment does indeed come across as ridiculous, yet it’s one of the most effective the 106-minutes has to offer.
As Jay, searching for his father’s (Josh Brolin) remains, attempts to escape through the inside of a whale there’s a slight cycling feeling to the different stages, separated by flashbacks to his childhood (played by Grayson Paul Solomine, Ronin Pribble and Sam Franich as he gets older) and cold interactions with his demanding father; which soon act as lessons of how to survive and escape his current situation. Squid attacks, depleting oxygen and tight spaces make for numerous battles with a dash of tension, even if sometimes echoing other survival thrillers where the past acts as a way to escape.
It’s these callbacks that can sometimes feel slightly heavier-handed than perhaps intended. Especially when used as frequently as they are, perhaps why someone such as Brolin is in the role. Much like the present-day details there are some moments of these flashbacks, in this case when less forceful in terms of both emotion and clearly building up to something later referred to in the escape, that work better than others. Whalefall as a whole is a pretty simple film, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it sometimes feels as if it pushes its dramatic beats a bit too much to make up for that, something that doesn’t need to be made up for.
Abrams puts in a good central performance and helps to get across some of the tension, particularly during some of the most confined moments. With this and Resident Evil his growing streak of not-particularly-great-days is providing good entertainment, and hopefully more roles for him in future (maybe something less stressful for his character, however). Whalefall may occasionally feel as if it treads water with some overdone dramatic sequences and familiar tone to others in the escape sections, but there’s a solid tension amongst them and engaging survival escape thriller that’s seen through to the end. One that appears to work best when embracing ideas that appear to be ridiculous, when fully committing to the moment.
While there might feel a familiar cycle to the narrative layout, when not being so heavy with the drama and committing fully to the sometimes more ridiculous aspects of the escape there’s an engaging and occasionally tense time to be had with Whalefall.
