Not exactly a shining achievement for black roles — or any roles, for that matter — Red Water is a by-the-books, made-for-TV killer shark movie. C-grade horror mainstay Coolio is main bad guy Ice, a stereotypical thug who works for stereotypical Caribbean drug kingpin Rick (Tumisho Masha) and is stereotypically looking for his money, bitch. Trouble is, his money is lying in a river that just so happens to be patrolled by a man-eating bullshit — er, shark. So yadda yadda yadda, people get eaten, Ice gets killed — as does the black sidekick (Charles Dumas) to our hero John (Lou Diamond Phillips), who should know better than to hang out with the hero of a horror movie — Kristy Swanson shows some cleavage, people dive into the water to avoid a slow-motion explosion, the end. To the movie’s credit, the shark is a bit more convincing than the laughable Shark Attack, just as Lou Diamond Phillips is a bit more convincing as a human than Casper Van Dien.
