It is astounding to me, on this 50th anniversary year of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, that not only did it inspire so many shark-based thrillers but none of those derivative works ever came close to approaching the quality of the original film. These days shark thrillers are effectively a mini-genre of their own, with a cottage industry of low-budget producers churning out an endless string of near-identical films. Put a person or people out to sea, threaten them with a pack of hungry sharks, and watch the revenue pour in. It all feels remarkably unfair on the animals, which only killed seven people worldwide in 2024. Cows, on average, are responsible for 22. Give me a cottage industry of cow thrillers and I promise to sit up and take notice.

In Le-Van Kiet’s The Requin (2022), a couple struggling to cope with a family tragedy go on holiday to Vietnam. There is a major storm, which washes their cabin out to sea, and then their struggle to wave down passing planes and ships attract the interest of a pack of hungry sharks.

You can tell straight away that this is a low-budget affair, cobbled together through a large number of small investors. If nothing else it is obvious from the extensive list of production credits: six credited producers and fourteen executive producers. As soon as the opening titles are over, the budgetary limitations of the film are clear from the very cheap and unconvincing blue-screen and CGI work. As events progress, if the unconvincing ocean-borne cabin set does not scream poverty then the combination of stock shark footage and Playstation 2 quality CGI will. Limited resources can often inspire great inventiveness and quality, but here they push the feeling that this story probably should not have been attempted with what was available.

Even as hopelessly unconvincing as they are, The Requin‘s sharks feel badly short-changed. The film’s marketing promises an action-packed gory thriller. In practice, audiences receive about 25 minutes of shark-on-human action preceded by roughly an hour of a married couple dispute on the open ocean. This could work, given a sharp enough screenplay and strong performances. Unfortunately the screenplay is weak and the performances – by Alicia Silverstone and James Tupper – are dire. I am inclined to blame direction and scheduling rather than the actors themselves. I have seen Silverstone in a number of films, and she’s demonstrated great talent. Here she feels badly under-directed and rushed, as if the film could only afford one or two takes for each scene.

What Silverstone delivers onscreen is a jaw-dropping array of involuntary sounds. She cries. She whines. She makes little yelping noises. In a film essentially devoid of entertainment value her various shrieks and calls form a master class of egregious over-acting. When it transpires she does not even wave for help believably The Requin transforms from deeply ordinary thriller to raucous drinking game. Laugh at a scream? Take a sip. Start worrying that you just heard a sex noise? Down the bottle.

This film genuinely makes no sense. Sharks have tiny little dorsal fins above the water, but are rendered beneath the surface as gargantuan beasts. Tupper’s character bleeds from a cut on his leg so copiously that blood is pouring out of the man two-and-a-half days later. Meanwhile Silverstone has a chunk of her leg bitten out and barely bleeds at all. The characters apparently do not need to eat. They barely drink, and all that happens is they complain of being thirsty.

I usually avoid writing such a bitchy hit piece on a bad, low-budget film. After all, it is a miracle that any individual film makes it to the screen at all. Here though, The Requin makes its audience promises that it cannot keep. Its actors are terrible, despite demonstrating decent talent elsewhere. Its director, Le-Van Kiet, also directed Disney’s The Princess, which was an outstanding little action film. What the hell happened here?