“Crawl” had all the elements to be a compelling and suspenseful two-hander. Two characters with a fraught relationship are put in a high-stakes situation. This should be the making of a movie that moves at an engrossing, break-neck speed. Instead, this film lives up to its title — it crawls.
The movie follows University of Florida all-star swimmer Haley (Kaya Scodelario). Through flashbacks and phone calls with her sister, we learn that her once rock-solid relationship with her father/former swimming coach with her father Dave (Barry Pepper) is incredibly strained. But when she learns that a Category 5 hurricane is barreling towards her hometown, and her sister has not heard from their dad, Haley has no choice but to drive home and check in on him. Haley find her injured father trapped in their rapidly-flooding family home. And he is being stalked by two massive alligators. And here is where the bulk of our story truly kicks off.
The vast majority of this film is Haley and Dave fighting for survival against the gators in their home. There’s just something that does not click here, and it’s hard to put your finger on it. For one, there is little to no chemistry between our two leads. Their performances just feel too independent of one another. While their characters’ relationship has become strained, it has deep roots. There should be a strong familiarity, chemistry and tension when they interact. But even the intense moments fall flat. There is nothing in either of their performances that make the film worth watching. Their family dog gives a more engaging performance.
The performances are flat, but everything else about this film feels clunky. The dialogue in “Crawl” feels disjointed. Tense family drama is an easy topic for a film, which means it’s easy to get into cliché territory. “Crawl” lives in that space and pulls from every cliché in the book. The dialogue is stale and the background stories of our two leads is dull.
Ultimately, this is a movie that tries to be “Jaws” without really having the chops to do so. The characters are not well-fleshed out and the monsters do not feel nearly as menacing as they should be. Now I may be writing this as someone who does not hail from gator country, but the gators appear to be comically large, which takes the audience out of the story.
If you are looking for a solid man vs. monster movie, there are definitely better options out there besides “Crawl.”
