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The story behind the release of Deep Water<\/a> \u2013 which arrives on Amazon Prime Video<\/a> in the UK this weekend \u2013 has been a long and relatively complicated one.<\/p>\n Originally set for release back in November 2020, the film became a victim of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Disney takeover of 20th Century Fox, and was left in limbo long enough for its two main stars (Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas) to engage in a brief but high-profile real-life relationship, which famously ended with a life-sized cardboard cutout being thrown in the trash.<\/p>\n After being scrapped by Disney entirely, the film was eventually picked up by US streaming platform Hulu and now \u2013 finally \u2013 it arrives, albeit with very little hype or fanfare in spite of its A-list cast.<\/p>\n And the fact that the film is getting such short shrift is a real shame. Not only is it the first feature in two decades from celebrated director Adrian Lyne \u2013 he of Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal fame \u2013 but it\u2019s also an attempt to revive the genre he helped popularise in the \u201980s and \u201990s, the erotic thriller.<\/p>\n In the \u201990s especially, movies in this mode were an extremely prominent part of the cinema landscape, but nowadays they\u2019ve all but disappeared from the mainstream, even if a few examples \u2013 such as last year\u2019s The Voyeurs starring Euphoria\u2019s Sydney Sweeney \u2013 remain on the fringes.<\/p>\n Explanations as to why the genre has lain in dormancy for so long are varied and plentiful, but in my view, any attempt to help bring it back should be welcomed with open arms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p> By and large, the reviews for Deep Water have been fairly poor \u2013 and indeed some critics have given it a real kicking. It\u2019s not hard to see why it might come in for some flak \u2013 the film is curiously paced and contains its fair share of poor dialogue, for starters, while it never really feels like it takes place in a recognisable version of the real world.<\/p>\n But I must confess that I found it to be a total hoot, pretty much from beginning to end. Sure, it\u2019s not as accomplished a film as the aforementioned Fatal Attraction \u2013 a bonafide classic \u2013 but it contains a perfect blend of preposterous plotting and moments of delightful high camp which make it near-impossible not to be won over by, a knowingly trashy throwback full of moral uncertainty and pitch-black comedy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the centre of it are Affleck and de Armas, without whom the whole endeavour wouldn\u2019t work nearly so well. This is probably the closest we\u2019ve come to seeing Affleck return to the tenor of his terrific performance as Nick Dunne in Gone Girl.<\/p>\n His character Vic Van Allen \u2013 who we are told relatively early on is responsible for inventing a microchip used in drone warfare \u2013 is a curious, seemingly amoral beast, and Affleck plays him with a certain detachment that only sporadically betrays his true feelings.<\/p>\n