Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Simply A Masterpiece

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I had high hopes from this movie based on the description and I also enjoy Sean Astin as an actor so I thought it would be pretty good. I was wrong. First of all, it didn't really have any sense of adventure or suspense like I thought it would. While it did explore topics that I feel are important to delve into, it just wasn't done in a manner that was effective enough to capture interest or elicit emotion. The movie is very dialogue heavy and that dialogue is just not engaging in my opinion. I kept waiting for more to happen, but more never came.

Guy takes boat out on lake, guy rescues other guy from plane crash, an hour of the most mind numbingly boring conversation I have ever heard, plane crash guy eventually gets rescued. I never even cared enough to learn their names. No conflict, no excitement, no imminent danger, no solutions to problems, no real plot. Every opportunity for something exciting to happen was handled in the most boring way possible. Plane crashed? mildly bad weather, pilot error. Plane crash guy threatens to stab boat guy? they're all buddy buddy swapping stories 5 minutes later. Mystery backpack? can't open it. "Bad guys" trying to get backpack? they stop by and pick it up without a word. Boat damaged and sinking? just lazily paddle for a bit before giving up and ignoring the rising water. Plane crash guy experiencing medical issues? cell phone conveniently gets signal now.Maybe I'm missing the point of this movie but it's not a thriller and barely a drama. The cover is misleading because there was never any rain or waves or even a hint of bad weather. I was hoping plane crash guy would just die from his injuries and boat guy would follow through with this suicide so the movie would end.

I read about the story before watching the movie. It reminded me a movie I really liked, Against The Sun, about three soldiers trying to survive on a lifeboat after their bombardier crashed into the ocean. So I gave The Surface a shot. And what a disappointed that became. It's a really awful movie. The two main characters played by Sean Astin and Chris Mulkey have pointless and boring conversations on a boat in the middle of Lake Michigan. The acting is also pretty bad. Sean Astin looks like an actor from a B-movie and Chris Mulkey sometimes just mumbles something that is very hard to understand. Their endless boring conversations about their pathetic life will bore you to death. I could not wait for this movie to end and so to put an end to my misery. Avoid this movie at all cost and watch Against The Sun instead if you want to watch something similar but then with a good story.

Greetings again from the darkness. Survival movies come in many shapes and styles. There are classy ones like All is Lost (with Robert Redford) and Life of Pi (Academy Award nominee). There are thrilling ones like The Edge (with Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins). And of course there are the kinda trashy ones that usually feature beautiful and clueless people stuck on an island somewhere like in Turistas (with Josh Duhamel).What we rarely see are survival movies that just don't have much going on. Open Water is about the closest to this latest from director Gil Cates, Jr and writer Jeff Gendelman, but at least that one offered the constant threat of a shark attack.Sad sack Mitch (Sean Astin) visits his Alzheimer's-stricken mom in the nursing home before heading out to the middle of Lake Michigan in what he plans as his final voyage in life. At the most inopportune time – given his goal – it's his boat that is rendered lifeless thanks to the scattered pieces of a plane crash. Mitch drags the survivor (Chris Mulkey) aboard and the two fellows proceed to prove that their philosophizing and reminiscing are no match for the conversational skills of a boy and his tiger (Life of Pi).Flashbacks are the key to us understanding the reasons these two crossed paths in such an unusual manner. We see Mitch's guilt and inability to be a worthy partner in a relationship, and we see pilot Kelly's desperation in trying to making ends meet for his family and regaining his confidence as a man.There are a couple of funny "guy" moments (the poet comment made me laugh), yet somehow the conversation of these two men in a life-threatening situation pales in comparison to the exchanges of two gents over a meal in My Dinner with Andre. Where is the danger? Where is the stress? Where is the soul-searching? It's unfortunate that the extended periods of two guys in a boat just don't have much to offer for the 86 minute run time, because the stage was set for much more than melodrama.