A shallow, gorgeous, lightened-and-brightened rehash of THE DEEP (1977), this voyeuristic thriller contains just enough twists that you don't have to feel completely guilty for enjoying it. Sun- and surf-loving Sam (Jessica Alba) and Jared (Paul Walker) are just scraping by on their low-level jobs in the Bahamian tourist industry: She swims with the sharks at a luxury hotel resort, he crews on a dive boat. They're broke, and that's fine by Sam, who for all her sultry beauty has a level head on her shoulders and a mature sense of what matters most in life: love, honesty and self-respect. Jared is still in thrall to the promise of sunken treasure, and in the wake of a recent hurricane — there's nothing like some serious turbulence to uncover buried goodies — he's dying to get out and do some prospecting. That he's just been fired for mouthing off to his jerk of a boss only makes him more determined to get his rust-bucket of a boat back in the water. Enter Jared's old pal Bryce (Scott Caan), a hotshot lawyer in town with opportunistic good-time girl Amanda (Ashley Scott) and the keys to a palatial vacation home, complete with boat. They find some tantalizing underwater debris, including pieces of two silver pistols and a distinctive powder horn, that convinces Jared they've located a legendary wreck called the Zephyr. Bahamian law requires treasure hunters to register proof of their find's identity before they can legally claim whatever they recover, but every day Jared and company spend looking for something bearing the Zephyr's name the chances increase that another, better-equipped crew — like the one run by greasy-haired professional scavenger Bates (Josh Brolin) — will come in and scoop the claim. Which is where the other wreck comes in: A few hundred feet from the Zephyr lies a small plane packed with hundreds of kilos of cocaine snugly packed in watertight bundles. Sam and Jared want nothing to do with illegal narcotics, but Bryce and Amanda see a way to pay for salvage equipment; they surreptitiously recover a few keys and try to move them on the thriving local drug market, which is when everyone's troubles begin. The cast is little more than the sum total of golden skin, firm flesh and blindingly white teeth, but in a film that demands them to be half-naked and soaking wet most of the time, looks trump technical acting skill every time. --Maitland McDonagh
