Shitty Movie Sundays: Black Water

Black Water movie posterFrom Amazon’s page on Black Water: A deep-cover operative (Van Damme) imprisoned on a CIA submarine teams with a fellow prisoner (Lundgren) for an electrifying fight to escape in this action-powered thriller.

Jean-Claude Van Damme! Dolph Lundgren! Secret Agents! On a Submarine! Whoever wrote this blurb must be a shitty movie fan. No one but one of us could tap so deeply into the shitty movie fan’s root desires in so few words. And if they’re not fan — if they’re just churning out copy for a meager wage and nothing else — then might I suggest a raise? This scribbler has talent!

Black Water, the 2018 shitty action flick from director Pasha Patriki and screenwriter Chad Law, does indeed feature a prison aboard a submarine. It’s a silly premise. We all know, to our deep and everlasting shame, that the United States operates secret black sites where it holds prisoners outside of the legal system. These sites tend to be in countries willing to look the other way on torture, or even provide such services.

In this movie’s fictional universe, the CIA got ahold of a decommissioned submarine, hollowed out some of the compartments, and is using that as a mobile and undetectable black site. Once a person goes in, they never come out. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: Black Water”