Alex is the Editor-in-Chief of Reviews & Prestige Content, overseeing ScreenRant’s movie reviews as one of its Rotten Tomatoes-approved reviewers. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Brown University, he spent a year confined in Scotland to complete a master’s degree in film studies at the University of Edinburgh, which he says is a pleasant and lively city. He now lives and works in Milan, Italy, a short train ride from the Venice Film Festival, which he first covered for SR in 2024.
It’s almost impossible to sit down Discuss and you don’t feel like you know what you’re getting yourself into. Every time I described the premise to someone – a survival thriller about a small town flooded by a storm, then infested with killer sharks – they would make a face that said, I know what kind of movie it is. And for those looking for it, the most important question it needs to answer is whether the filmmakers knew what kind of movie they were making. The main criterion by which this film will be judged is whether it “did it right”.
It’s clear from the start that they did. Despite a decent budget and recognizable actors to work with, writer-director Tommy Wirkola, known for the Nazi zombie film Dead snow and his Santa Claus Action Movie Violent nightmade sure that what ended up on screen was a pretty fun B-picture. It doesn’t have the stylistic touch that can sometimes add a little extra to playful genre films, nor a real striking sequence that could give it a chance at a longer cultural life. But it has exactly the tone you’d hope for, especially as it nears its climax, and that’s all it really needs to deliver the goods.
Netflix’s new shark thriller is exactly the kind of fun you were hoping for
When Discuss begins, the town of Annieville, South Carolina, is already heading toward disaster. What started as a small storm just hours before is now Hurricane Henry, which has grown so strong that one character suggests it should have been named “Hurricane Ted Bundy.” So the film uses our first layer of disbelief to introduce its characters, focusing our attention on why everyone didn’t evacuate. And it’s obvious, too: The first person we really meet is Dakota (Whitney Peak), whose agoraphobia, in the context of a genre film, immediately registers as a reason to get stuck in the shark storm.
We continue the list in this way. Marine researcher Dale (Djimon Hounsou) is Dakota’s uncle and will procure himself In struggling to save her. Lisa, very pregnant (Phoebe Dynevor) was forced to come to work that day, and given that her fiancé recently left her, she is hardly in a position to say no. Ron (Stacy Clausen), Dee (Alyla Browne), and Will (Dante Ubaldi), three foster siblings living near the swamp, are at the mercy of their POS foster father, Billy (Matt Nable), who insists that “there is nothing but a little time.“It’s ultimately a smart strategy, not only for its effectiveness, but also because it establishes each of them as characters worth supporting. They didn’t choose to stay, but were forced to, and thus become people we would like to see survive this ordeal.
If I had to pinpoint one thing that keeps this film from reaching that next level, it would be the uneven execution.
Discuss wastes no time getting to the moment where Henry breaks the levee, floods the town, and has a meat truck dump its bloody contents into the water. Almost everyone we’ve encountered so far is in immediate danger, including Lisa, who is trapped in her car by a tree branch as the water level steadily rises. For a moment there is a real sense of danger, and the film seems capable of shifting into a more serious thriller. That’s when the first shark attack occurs, after which a man comes out of the water, looks at the bloody stump where his arm was and screams. I laughed and leaned back, confident that I was in good hands. From there, things only escalate and the laughs continue to flow.
If I had to pinpoint one thing that keeps this film from reaching that next level, it would be the uneven execution. Wirkola is clearly in tune with his material, and the camera movement and editing are in tune with the tone he’s going for. But from scene to scene, the general feeling oscillates. At times, it’s a performance that takes the material a little too seriously; sometimes it’s a set piece that drops the ball a little. Nothing that can’t be redeemed by the next scene, but enough that my engagement level fluctuates.
However release on Netflixthis film was originally intended for theaters, dated, delayed and ultimately undated by producers Sony Pictures. While this story is visible in its appearance, as well as the economical visual storytelling deployed throughout, I thought about it most as the chaos of the shark storm reached its climax. Some moments were clearly designed to get laughs, and with a crowd, that intoxicating feeling of shared liberation would have only fueled the finale. However – and this is a sign that a film is well suited to occasional viewing – watching it alone at home was nonetheless a good time.
- Release date
- April 10, 2026
- Runtime
- 83 minutes
- Director
- Tommy Wirkola
- Writers
- Tommy Wirkola
- Producers
- Adam McKay, Tommy Wirkola, Kevin J. Messick
Cast
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Phoebe Dynevor
Lisa Fields
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