The Requin, Vietnam Sharks

"The Requin"? Really? It's a shark movie. Hence the first big problem with this film. Requin? Are you kidding me? Nothing says shocking horror like...REQUIN!? As Mayor Vaughn said in 1975, "...you yell 'requin,' and people say 'huh,' 'what'?  You yell SHARK and all of a sudden you have a panic on your hands during Tet!" Or, something like that.  Problem number 2...nothing says roping in an audience like a backstory about a painful and tragic pregnancy. So this is what you do...call the film "Charlie was a Shark" or "Ho Shark Minh," then replace the pregnancy backstory with one about a zombie infestation in Saigon...then we're talking Oscars! Let us look at 2022's "The Requin," directed by Le-Van Kiet.

We'll skip the backstory...it will make you root for the great white shark. Okay, a vacationing couple, Jaelyn (Alicia Silverstone) and Kyle (James Tupper) are vacationing at a swanky Vietnamese resort. She cries a lot and we want to yell at the screen, GET OVER IT! They have one of those rooms in a hut built on the ocean and connected to the beach by a dock. Always fun until a freak typhoon arrives. Yep, Vietnam's Weather Channel isn't much better than the US one. Now Kyle and Jaelyn are banged up, bleeding, and still in their room...but the hut is now in the middle of the Pacific. Even worse, Kyle's leg is really badly hurt and bleeding and the blood is dripping off the mangled hut into the ocean.

You guessed it...sharks arrive. We are happy about this as one may eat Jaelyn. Then the couple try some things, all really stupid things, and before you know it the hut bursts into flames and now scattered driftwood is their only refuge. Kyle is bleeding some more. The sharks begin getting closer and the really big sharks arrive. I must say, the final 30 or 35 minutes of this film is now at hand...and believe it or not, it gets really good.  No spoilers here, but if you are about to turn this film off when the selfish and PTSD ridden Jaelyn goes off for the 1,000th time...don't.  What happens in the final third of the film will be well worth learning a new word...Requin. What is a requin? French for shark. I know...just call it SHARK! I'm with you.

Will we be fortunate enough to see Jaelyn eaten?  Will Kyle be fortunate enough to see Jaelyn eaten? Who goes to Nam to help their PTSD?  I mean, isn't that what Disney World is for? Perhaps Joel and the bots could have done a nice job with this one. Still, for the final 30 minutes, this is a good one. See "Nam Shark," I mean "The Requin," and reconsider staying in one of those hut ocean rooms in tropical places.