Synopsis: A group of friends’ fishing boat capsizes off the coast of Mexico, and they’re left alone stranded at sea and struggling for survival.
What We Thought:
I am absolutely befuddled by Not Without Hope for multiple reasons. For one, it stars Zachary Levi and Josh Duhamel, two actors who I like and it’s from Joe Carnahan a director I love and I had no idea this movie existed. Second, it’s based on a true story that I do not remember in the slightest. After watching it I called my sister to see if my brother-in-law knew the story and he didn’t know it either.
That story is about four friends who go on a fishing trip, get stuck in a bad storm and the boat capsizes. Sure that happens all the time, but two of the men were NFL players. The four friends played college ball together and two of them made the pros. Now I won’t spoil it if you aren’t familiar with the story either, but you can probably assume not everyone survives if there is a movie about the event.
I will say it is the least “Joe Carnahan” film that Joe has ever made. The man behind Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team and The Grey is known for over the top violence and action. This is a survival film about four men on an overturned boat. Other than the boat capsizing, there really isn’t much action. I’m shocked that Carnahan made this. If you got rid of all the “F-bombs” it would feel more like an Angel Studios faith-based film more than a Carnahan flick. Zachary Levi has become pretty open about his religious beliefs so a movie about friends trying to survive and having hope makes sense having Levi involved.
Not Without Hope reminded me of Disney’s The Finest Hours and other water survival flicks. I have no idea why I don’t remember this story being a football fan. Those expecting a big action Carnahan film will be disappointed, but if you want an uplifting story about survival and hope it does the trick.
The Nerds Templar 