Dead in the Water

I didn't recognize Henry Thomas, the kid from ET.

I watched him in Dead in the Water (2001), a thriller, most of it with only three or four characters. A lot of people in imdb.com absolutely hated it, I think because the characters were so vile---some rich, successful, shallow, materialistic, attractive athletic relatively young Americans in Brazil. They go out on a boat. They swim in the ocean.

From here on, this is either spoilers or teasers, I'm not sure which.

They throw a rich Brazilian guy overboard after he tries making out with the other guy's girlfriend. He can't swim. They throw him a life preserver and leave him. They plan to go back for him after scaring him to teach him a lesson, but when they finally get back they can't find him. They eventually find the life ring floating there.

Even rich shallow materialistic Americans are going to be upset when they realize they'll likely be charged with murder. They work to get their stories straight. Henry Thomas decides to kill the guy who murdered the Brazilian but has trouble finding something to bludgeon him with. He tries to attack him in his sleep with a fire extinguisher but he wakes up and stabs him. The girl starts to treat the stab wound then tries to smother Henry with a pillow. She thinks she's killed him but he comes to and tells the other guy what she just did.

Wouldn't have made a bad comedy. But that's true of a lot of movies. For years I thought Murder on the Orient Express was a comedy. And I've always been horrified by romantic comedies, women stalked by men they barely know who demand that they marry them.