Wait — Renny Harlin Made a Tolerable Movie? ‘Deep Water’ Isn’t Getting Panned!

On paper, “Deep Water,” produced by KISS’s Gene Simmons, seemed like it could be yet another flop added to Renny Harlin’s ever-expanding résumé — a career so baffling that almost anyone else would’ve been exiled from the industry.

But against expectations, “Deep Water,” somehow, finds a strange, pulsing life of its own, leaning into its absurdities rather than collapsing under them. There’s a grimy confidence in its pacing, a willingness to let the tension do its thing instead of rushing toward spectacle, and — know what? — it turns out to be somewhat watchable.

The film sits squarely in the “better-than-it-should-be but still fundamentally flawed” category—neither the outright fiasco its premise might imply nor a meaningful reinvention of the genre, but rather a passably tense, occasionally engaging survival exercise that works best when it leans into its own self-awareness as a silly B-movie thriller.

I’m not dreaming it either. Critics are actually kind to Harlin’s latest — 79% on Rotten Tomatoes and 57 on Metacritic is a marked improvement over those last three “Strangers” films he’s released over the past two years. The last time Harlin had a “fresh” Tomatometer score was with “Deep Blue Sea” (1999), which sits at 60%. In fact, the 79% for “Deep Water” marks the highest score of his career. Is a Harlinaissance upon us?

Technically, this is the highest-rated film of Harlin’s career. If you can believe it, “The Long Kiss Goodnight” sits at just 67%, “Cliffhanger” and “Die Hard 2” are around the same, which really highlights how much film criticism has shifted over time, with today’s critics tending to be more lenient in their ratings.

“Deep Water,” which stars Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley, follows an assorted group of international passengers en route from Los Angeles to Shanghai who are forced to make an emergency landing in shark-infested waters. You know the rest: they must work together to survive as predators continuously encircle the wreckage.

As mentioned, Harlin directed “The Strangers,” splitting it into three parts and releasing the films in 2024 and 2025 to critical derision and total audience disinterest. What made the “Strangers” fiasco especially notable is how calculated it all was. All three films were shot simultaneously in mid-2022. Yes, Lionsgate allowed Harlin to shoot three movies in a row — which, in and of itself, is a wild decision. But hey, don’t worry, Harlin is apparently working on a 4.5-hour director’s cut of all three films.

Harlin did have early successes in his career (“Die Hard 2,” “Cliffhanger”), but it’s been a real struggle for him over the past 30 years. It’s hard to think of another active studio filmmaker with a longer streak of critical and commercial disappointments. And no, don’t say Uwe Boll — he’s a special case, largely self-financing his films.

Harlin’s cinematic nadirs include “Cutthroat Island,” “Driven,” “Exorcist: The Beginning,” “Mindhunters,” and “The Legend of Hercules.” It’s not all bad, though. He did direct 1996’s excellent “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” one of, if not the only great film of his career — and one hell of a twisty noir. That was 30 years ago, and yet he somehow continues to chug along — his career will one day be a case study in failing upward, and the sheer durability of competent mediocrity in Hollywood. Maybe “Deep Water” is just what he needed at this stage in his career.

Up next for Harlin? He’s already shot his next film, “Black Tides,” which involves John Travolta and Melissa Barrera’s sailboat being attacked by rogue orcas off the southern Spanish coast — setting off a fight for survival across open waters. Fairly similar to “Deep Water,” but hey, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.