A vapidly written piece of film-noir flotsam, DEAD TIDES is the kind of film that could send star Roddy Piper back to the wrestling ring permanently.
Although skipper-for-hire Mick Leddy (Roddy Piper) is master of his fate at sea, he is less decisive on dry land, where his on-again off-again romance with Lori (Camilla More) irks her serious suitor, Scott (Trevor Goddard), a Coast Guard officer and Mick's long-time rival. When Mick takes a job
captaining the boat of sexy Nola (Tawney Kitaen), he doesn't realize that he is being used to smuggle drugs into the US for Nola's husband Juan (Juan Fernandez).
When Scott has occasion to search Nola's pleasure cruiser, he harasses Mick with a dunking, but fails to find the hidden drugs. When Mick accidentally discovers the ship's true purpose, he plays it cool and leaves. But when DEA agent Stanovski (Miles O'Keeffe) threatens to make him the fall guy,
Mick agrees to wear a recording device and return to the ship. Nola finds the wire, wounds Mick and takes him to Juan in Mexico. Mick breaks free of Juan's bodyguards with intermittent help from Nola, who can't bring herself to finish him off. Cleared of complicity, Mick sails for Fiji; Lori and
Scott get married.
This spit-and-paste screenplay leaves the audience shouting questions at the screen: Doesn't Mick suspect that Juan is a dangerous coyote when he sees him killing a man during a fiesta? Doesn't Mick realize that his wire would be found immediately, since Nola can't keep her hands off his pecs? Why
does Roddy keep grinning like the village idiot--is it embarrassment over the script? The sloppy screenplay slamdances with logic; the direction is just about competent; the acting reveals a chronic fear of subtlety. Feebly ripping off the romantic center of TEQUILA SUNRISE (1988), DEAD TIDES
lacks that film's glamour, star power, and juicy dialogue. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, extensive nudity, substance abuse, sexual situations.) leave a comment
