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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Thirsting For More--After A Great Setup, "Waterborne" Fails To Excite Or Enlighten, December 3, 2007
This review is from: Waterborne (DVD)
"Waterborne" starts out with a terrific premise, but a limited budget, and tries mightily to put on a big show! And while I might respect the effort--unfortunately, this ambitious indie falls a bit short of the mark. Set in Los Angeles, "Waterborne" recounts the story of a society in panic. The water supply has been tampered with and the city's death toll starts to rise as citizens are poisoned by this daily necessity. Concentrating on a few major characters whose lives intersect at various points, "Waterborne" has aspirations of being an "important" and "meaningful" picture about humanity when it, perhaps, would have achieved greater success as a thriller. Its script relies too heavily on contrivance and implausibilities to take it seriously as a message movie.
Ultimately, what is lacking from "Waterborne" is a logical sense of reality. If this event were to actually happen in Los Angeles, one could imagine the terror and hysteria it would inspire. The screenplay, however, misses a lot that would have enhanced the film's believability. We're told early on that people have been advised to stay away from all water--including things like showering, car washes, etc... Think about this burden. Don't you think people would be fleeing from the city? Immediately, the focus seems to rest mainly on drinking water. In the middle of this crisis, peripheral characters are still showing up to menial jobs (perfectly groomed), families are still serving up big home cooked meals (no water needed in this kitchen), and life moves on rather normally. In fact, by the third day when you would imagine all stores having been emptied, a character dying of thirst still finds plenty of milk in a convenience store. Hey, no one thought to buy up other drinkable fluids?
I might have been inclined to forgive these things had "Waterborne" succeeded as a thriller. The movie made me recall another strange indie from 1996 called "The Trigger Effect." Granted, "Trigger" had more expensive production values and a higher profile cast--but the themes were eerily similar. "Trigger" documents an unexplained power failure that starts as an inconvenience but quickly spirals into a pit of fear, violence, and desperation. "Trigger" wasn't necessarily a great movie, but it did achieve a real sense of danger and panic. People pushed to extremes ended up in extreme circumstances. It contained a frenzy and a heightened drama that let it succeed as a nifty thriller even with its other shortcomings. I wished for some of this excitement with "Waterborne" whose scenario plays out exactly as you might expect.
"Waterborne" has some decent performances, but is not compelling or unique enough. Given the horrifying premise, this movie could have been a small gem--tapping into real fears and anguish. But if the film's characters aren't smart enough to drink milk when they're thirsty--you know the situation isn't all that terrible. I wanted to like it, I just didn't. KGHarris, 12/07.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I was just getting something to drink.........., April 8, 2008
This review is from: Waterborne (DVD)
"Waterborne" is one of those films that start a bit slow, but meshes together rather well right up to the end. Chris Masterson does a fine job, though I half expected Jane Kaczmarek to appear, admonishing her son! Shabana Azmi (City Of Joy) and Ajay Naidu do well as mother and son, trying to make a living, as Asian "foreigners" in L.A. Mageina Tovah (Spiderman) plays the girlfriend, an outsider that has fallen in love with the son.
What happens when major water supplies become contaminated, and only bottled water can be trusted? What would you do, to secure this precious commodity for yourself, and your family? Not only that, but how would it be, if a "foreigner" told you that the price went up, or you could only buy so much, and no more? How does a populace face this crisis?
"Waterborne" gives us a possible scenario as to what might happen, were that situation to arise. It's not pretty. It's a bit odd that thirst wasn't a big part of this film. Hatred was. Hatred of authority, hatred of other Races, hatred of a system that when the going gets tough, doesn't address the most simple of needs. Look also, to the location. Los Angeles was a desert before some greedy developer (or developers) decided to drop a few buildings and houses, and call it good. This all adds up to the situation you see in "Waterborne".
The events you will see in "Waterborne" are plausible, if not probable, if this scenario were to become fact. In the post-911 world, panic and fear are the only commodities to be counted on. Sounds pretty bleak, eh? In this film, a lesson IS learned however, about being a member of the human race. An uplifting finale is the reward.
In all, a very fine film. Highly recommended.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
SOMEWHAT WATERLOGGED, March 7, 2006
This review is from: Waterborne (DVD)
WATERBORNE is thematically linked to this year's surprise Oscar winner, CRASH. Both movies use interchanging characters who undoubtedly will somehow connect by the end of the movie. While CRASH's screenplay and acting are impeccably better, WATERBORNE does have a good cast of relative unknowns working their hearts out to be convincing, and it does have the best of intentions in showing what could happen if a water supply became tainted and how we would react. We have our prejudice examined in the form of an Indian family (or Pakistani? they never really say) who runs a market and are trying to ration the sale of their water supply. The young son also has fallen for a Caucasian girl who teaches yoga and is quite nice in fact. Next we have two cousins whose vocabulary basically consists of the "F" word in every other sentence. One is a mature responsible dude while the other is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode, which of course he does. We also get a couple of National Guardsmen who find themselves facing normal American citizens who are breaking the law by stealing water; tragedy ensues of course.
WATERBORNE is a noble effort and is to commended for its unusual theme. Sometimes the situations aren't really credible and the reactions of some of the leads is tenuous but for a small indie film, WATERBORNE is worth a see.
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