Customer Reviews

Waterborne

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"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.

"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.

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.

So this is an indie film about the idea that there is a water contaminant that hits the L.A. water supply. Interesting idea. Then I heard that the band Dredg did the soundtrack and I was even more interested...

...overall, the movie looks good, the story is good, and the acting is good, but overall, the way the story flows and pieces together was not that well executed. There is a scene with two of the main characters who are like best friends, but then when they cut back to them later the two are fighting and we were all like, "What the heck was that?" I think we missed something...

It is kind of funny to watch the actor that was "Uncle Rico" in Napoleon Dynamite try to act like an military leader. I just could not buy it, but that is me. Haha.

So overall, it was a decent film, but the overall execution of it was not as well done as I was hoping for.

If you enjoy a thought-provoking disaster DVD with lots of fu** and sh** words you will only be happy about the cursing. OK, OK, you might overlook the bad language if not for the mediocre acting, low budget effects, and a plot you could guess long before the end. It was so bad that I skipped the entire middle of the movie to see the last two scenes.

Sure glad that I only rented this. Now, the Poseidon, that is a good disaster flick.

Really original and potent. A little too much cursing for my taste and the some picture clarity comes out a little amateurish. Good Acting and plot saves the day.

This movie is a journey into the minds of several random, good-hearted people in a time of crisis. The plot could call for a big-budget Hollywood disaster movie, but this is the opposite. Ben Rehki wanted to create a movie that had not been done before. Mission accomplished. This film essentially predicted the disaster that was the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Water is no longer available. How long can you stay sane without any liquid in your system while fighting the balmy, hot summer of Los Angeles? Not long. Good acting, unique cinematography, and an extremely relevant plotline. Not to mention one of the best movie scores ever composed from the most important rock band in America, dredg.

In this psychological thriller, in the tradition of Crash, a series of interconnected stories reveals the emotional cost and real devastation that happen when LA's water supply is attacked with a biological agent. People everywhere are dying, and the water is so unsafe it can't be touched, let alone drunk. Soon all the bottled water is gone and over the next 72 hours, everyone must decide what's really important to them.

This movie is quick, smart, and the cast works well together. It not only addresses issues of global import, but peels back your eyelids to make you see snippets of human interaction, some of which are touching, some of which are caustic, and all of which smack of truth given the situation. It's the kind of film you will want to watch with friends and family, because you'll want to talk about it afterward.

Rent this movie if you feel like investing a bit of yourself and thinking for a long time afterwards about everything.

If you liked Crash, you'll like this.

Recommended.

A movie made using a very interesting subject...water. But what is scary is that it could happen to any city....Terrorism...
Interesting enought to not put it down halfway thru
The movie follows the action of differrent individuals instead of
using a big scale scenario.
This works, but it feels more like a TV movie.
Good to watch...at leat for one showing...but thats about it.

I caught this movie back in 2005 when it was shown at the SXSW festival and even after all these years, it still stands out firmly in my mind. There aren't too many movies that do that for me. The writing is incredible, the acting is never dull and the soundtrack is just haunting. I am glad that this movie finally found its way onto DVD so that more people can experience it.