In the year following the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001, the media presented us with a number of nightmarish 'what if' scenarios to help us sleep at night. Some of these included dirty bombs, trucks loaded with explosives, and crop-dusters spraying airborne toxins over entire cities. Although I thought a lot about the many ways that I could die that I had never thought of before, I never considered the effects on some of these types of terrorist acts on society as a whole. Waterborne explores this thought using the notion of terrorists poisoning the water supply of Los Angeles as a base.

The film's structure is similar to a number of indie films that I enjoy. It consists of an ensemble cast who are all connected by the event and many of whose lives cross at one point or another during the film. The moment that people learn of the terrorist act is where the film opens. We meet most of the characters just before they learn of the crisis and are able to see their reactions, which helps to establish the types of people they are. There is Bodi (Jake Moxworthy) and Zach (Christopher Masterson), cousins who are morally different but held together by friendship and history. We also have Ritter (Jon Gries) and Jasmine (Lindsay Price), a married couple who are torn apart as Ritter, a soldier, is called to police the people of Los Angeles in the ensuing chaos that will evidently result as time goes on. Finally, we have Heera (Shabana Azmi) and Vikram (Ajay Naidu), a mother and her son who own a convenience store and must contend with the increasingly crazy population that is on a frantic search for bottled water. The film cuts between the different sets of characters and slowly builds the tension as the situation becomes more and more dire.

This is one of those movies that you would look at in the video store and blow off as being a silly studio cash-in on current news stories. They are a dime a dozen and most of them are predictable and poorly made. This is not the case with this flick as I would put this more on par with films like Magnolia and Crash in that the story was very well-written and tied together with appropriate music and images so as to not feel forced. We have seen this style before and it is a difficult style to execute properly as it is so dependent on the script and editing. I thought this film easily succeeded in what it was trying to do. It didn't hurt that the entire cast was believable and that the cinematography was interesting in that the camera always felt like it was moving which pulled us through the story and didn't let us linger on anything for too long. The music had a similar effect in that it felt like it was always there, driving things forward and keeping the pace moving. There wasn't a moment in this film where I was looking at my watch.

Director Ben Rekhi has delivered a great movie in Waterborne and the low budget never shows. By keeping the action centralized and developing the characters quickly and effectively, we believe that the crisis is happening even though we do not see crowds of people rioting in the streets as would be the case in a big-budget Hollywood version of the same premise. I hope that Rekhi continues to make films as it is up to guys like this that still understand the importance of characters and plot that may be able to save Hollywood.

Many of the cast members were recognizable. Ajay Naidu was Ron Livingston's buddy in Office Space, Jon Gries was Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite, Lindsay Price was on "Beverly Hills, 90210", and Christopher Masterson is the brother of Danny Masterson from "That 70's Show". You may also catch Patrick Swayze's brother Don as a fisherman and Jenna Dewan from Tamara as a drug dealer's girlfriend. (Josh Pasnak, 3/8/06)

Directed By: Ben Rekhi.
Written By: Ben Rekhi.

Starring: Christopher Masterson, Jake Muxworthy, Ajay Naidu, Jon Gries.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: No complaints here. As with most newer movies, the picture was clean and easy on the eyes. Keep in mind that this was a low budget flick.

Extras: The screener copy we recieved only contained a trailer, but the disc is also supposed to contain behind the scenes footage, deleted scenes, and bios.