Depth Charge

DEPTH CHARGE (2008)

Directed by: Terence O’Hara
Written by: Dennis Pratt
Starring: Eric Roberts, Jason Gedrick & Corbin Bernsen

The submarine takeover movie is a sub (ahem!) genre of the action world, usually involving a plot that consists of stolen nukes and terrorists taking over a sub: which is exactly what happens in Depth Charge. More precisely it’s a mish-mash of Die Hard and Under Siege as crazy, brain tumour inflicted Navy officer Eric Roberts hijacks a sub and threatens to blow somewhere or something up unless he receives one billion dollars. Yep, he actually asks for a billion. Well, a guy has got to aim high. However, sub doc Jason Gedrick is on board to look serious and waste bad guys with a bumbling sidekick in tow.

As routine as it gets, Depth Charge offers very little new and is one of those low-rent action films complete with stock footage from bigger movies (I’m pretty sure there were scenes from Air Force One in there somewhere) that used to clog up the video store shelves in the 1990s and star Michael Dudikoff. Corbin Bernsen and a pained looking Barry Bostwick also pop up and Gedrick repeats the line ‘Get off my sub!’ ad infinitum. Still the flick has a cheap cheery quality about it and there are certainly plenty of fist-fights, a bit of gunplay and the usual deploy-counter-measures-to-avoid-incoming-torpedoes type action. Plus, Eric Roberts is always good value and is certainly entertaining as the somewhat batty Navy dude gone bad.

No doubt Depth Charge will be clogging up cable channels for the foreseeable future.