Login
Well, here is a case of a film not knowing which one it wants to be. Uneven is a charitable phrase for this thing. Swimming with Sharks would have rated much lower if it didn’t have Kevin Spacey dazzling us in the lead role. When in doubt, just sit back and let Spacey occupy the screen as morally compromised or flat-out abusive and terrible characters he has made his stock and trade. Think about the films you remember him the most in: Se7en, L.A. Confidential, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, even more recently in Horrible Bosses. Spacey is just great at playing terrible people.
And Swimming with Sharks gives us quite a terrible person to spend time with in Spacey’s studio executive. He delights in torturing his assistants and barking orders into a packed hallway. If someone flinches and ducks out of his sight while he walks down a corridor, all the better, because he is addicted to the power and fear that his presence can bring. And the movie is quite enjoyable when we focus in on the relationship between Spacey and his latest helper, played by Frank Whaley. The movie takes a dark and ugly turn when Whaley’s character decides to enact his revenge by breaking into his boss’s house, tying him up and torturing him – literally this time, not figuratively. This turn stands in ugly contrast to more biting satirical edge the rest of the film has, a dour intrusion of ugly reality into something that cannot sustain it. And the less we discuss an ending so improbable that it almost insults your intelligence, the better. So there’s two films operating here and bounce back and forth between them. The only thing holding the entire film from collapsing in on itself is the caustic, vitriolic, blistering performance by Spacey.
