Hot Water

Directed by Larry Rippenkroeger, Hot Water follows washed-up jet skier Jarid Harper (Trevor Donovan) as he reluctantly agrees to coach an excessively cocky up-and-comer (Glenn McCuen’s Billy Burnett). It’s a decidedly familiar setup that is, at the outset, employed to by-the-numbers yet relatively affable effect by Rippenkroeger, as the filmmaker, working from his own screenplay, does a reasonably decent job of establishing the movie’s likeable characters and appealingly sunny environs – with, as a result, the low-rent, rough-around-the-edges atmosphere not as problematic as one might’ve feared and assumed. (It’s difficult, however, to excuse some of Rippenkroeger’s more overtly questionable choices, including an ongoing reliance on eye-rollingly juvenile instances of humor and a bizarre predilection for blurring over characters’ sunglasses to, one assumes, avoid reflecting the camera and crew.) There’s little doubt, then, that Hot Water, saddled with a ludicrously overlong running time, progresses into a padded-out and increasingly tedious midsection rife with some of the hoariest clichés and conventions imaginable, including a fake breakup and several training montages, which inevitably paves the way for a third act that’s hardly able to pack the exciting, satisfying punch for which Rippenkroeger is obviously aiming – with the picture subsequently (and ultimately) confirming its place as a periodically tolerable yet predominantly underwhelming underdog story.

** out of ****