The Pool: Movie Review

"The Pool" delivers the right mix of a realistic premise and B-movie silliness to make it a surreal but extremely fun experience. It won't blow you away but it will leave you gripping your seats and laughing at the same time.

Part of a film crew, Day (Theeradej Wongpuapan) is left alone to clean up after a shoot. He relaxes in a deep abandoned pool but accidentally dozes off. Unfortunately, by the time he wakes up, a significant portion of the pool's water has been drained. Unable to reach the top of the pool, Day is trapped - with no hopes of anyone coming back at the location for days even weeks. Day must find a way to escape but the impossible task becomes harder when a huge crocodile enters the pool with him.

Every minute that the film ticked by, "The Pool" became sillier and sillier. But it was the good kind of silly and it also became more interesting at the same time. Minus the shameful Pizza Hut plug, the ludicrous scenarios our protagonists find themselves in propel the film the extremely fun territory. There's also this sense that the film was able to utilize its limitations to its fullest potential. It was a simple movie of being trapped in a swimming pool with no hopes of rescue but the writers were able to glue together a cohesive film from start to finish nonetheless. It also had great acting. The two leads were on the top of their games and their enthusiasm was infectious. If we could nitpick, the visual effects of the crocodile were inconsistent. At times it looked real but there were also times that it looked obviously fake. Overall, "The Pool" is a film that is efficiently great. You won't learn anything from it and it definitely won't impact your emotions but there's no denying that sometimes, you just need simple plain fun to be satisfied.

Rating: 3 and a half reels





Why you should watch it:
- it's silly but an extremely fun film

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the visual effects were a mixed bag