✨Bakeꦏr Dill () is a boozehound boat captain barely earning a buck taking ugly American tourists fishing aboard his twin-engine cutter, the Serenity.
Karen () is a mysterious blonde from his past who pops up in his remote beachside village♌ with a proposition, roughly along the lines of “Feed my sadistic husband to the sharks and I’ll give yo🎀u $10 million.”
With its pulse-pounding, blue fin🗹 tuna fishing scenes (you read that right), enthusiastic humping and a video-game plot twist, “Serenity” could have been a nifty noir potboiler. Alas, there’s very little “Body Heat” in this waterlogged “D⛎ouble Indemnity” revamp.
And McConaughey needs to keep his pants on.
As a weathered Iraq War vet-turned-angler, he drops trou repeatedly: To seek comfort (and cash) in the bed of sugar mama Constance (Diane Lane, wasted), to jump off a cliff for daily “baths” and to,🦋 uh, teach Karen a lesson about loyalty. It’s hard to stifle giggles when he’s bare-assed for the umpteenth time.
Writer-direcꦦtor Steven Knight mixes a tried-and-true James M. Cain formula with a clever digital gimmick worthy of Christopher Nolan, but some o🍌f his dialogue is overripe to the point of rot.
Still, his Oscar-winning leads work hard, sometimes too hard,𒀰 to hook us. Djimon Hounsou also has a few nice moments as Baker’s God-fearing first mate, who tries to steer his captain away from “temptat꧟ion.”
But it’s Jason Clarke (“Chappaquiddick”) who steals the show as Frank Zariakas — Karen’s kinky, champagne-swilling hubby from𝔉 hell. He’s a supremely repulsive villain worthy of this guilty-pleasure genre.
But is Hathaway’s heavy-breathing Karen a damsel in d♌istress or a femme fatale? Why does everyone in this tropical paradise seem to know a little too much — and is McConaughey hallucinating the whole damn thing?
Don’t overthink it. Just enjoy the scenery.