"Waterborne" starts out with a terrific premise, but a limited budget, and tries mightily to put on a big show! And while I might respect the effort--unfortunately, this ambitious indie falls a bit short of the mark. Set in Los Angeles, "Waterborne" recounts the story of a society in panic. The water supply has been tampered with and the city's death toll starts to rise as citizens are poisoned by this daily necessity. Concentrating on a few major characters whose lives intersect at various points, "Waterborne" has aspirations of being an "important" and "meaningful" picture about humanity when it, perhaps, would have achieved greater success as a thriller. Its script relies too heavily on contrivance and implausibilities to take it seriously as a message movie.



Ultimately, what is lacking from "Waterborne" is a logical sense of reality. If this event were to actually happen in Los Angeles, one could imagine the terror and hysteria it would inspire. The screenplay, however, misses a lot that would have enhanced the film's believability. We're told early on that people have been advised to stay away from all water--including things like showering, car washes, etc... Think about this burden. Don't you think people would be fleeing from the city? Immediately, the focus seems to rest mainly on drinking water. In the middle of this crisis, peripheral characters are still showing up to menial jobs (perfectly groomed), families are still serving up big home cooked meals (no water needed in this kitchen), and life moves on rather normally. In fact, by the third day when you would imagine all stores having been emptied, a character dying of thirst still finds plenty of milk in a convenience store. Hey, no one thought to buy up other drinkable fluids?



I might have been inclined to forgive these things had "Waterborne" succeeded as a thriller. The movie made me recall another strange indie from 1996 called "The Trigger Effect." Granted, "Trigger" had more expensive production values and a higher profile cast--but the themes were eerily similar. "Trigger" documents an unexplained power failure that starts as an inconvenience but quickly spirals into a pit of fear, violence, and desperation. "Trigger" wasn't necessarily a great movie, but it did achieve a real sense of danger and panic. People pushed to extremes ended up in extreme circumstances. It contained a frenzy and a heightened drama that let it succeed as a nifty thriller even with its other shortcomings. I wished for some of this excitement with "Waterborne" whose scenario plays out exactly as you might expect.



"Waterborne" has some decent performances, but is not compelling or unique enough. Given the horrifying premise, this movie could have been a small gem--tapping into real fears and anguish. But if the film's characters aren't smart enough to drink milk when they're thirsty--you know the situation isn't all that terrible. I wanted to like it, I just didn't. KGHarris, 12/07.