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Why would anyone develop an obsession with a swimmer? Come on, they wear those nasty little Speedos, they have snot dripping from their noses, their skin is all wrinkly, they have stiff dry hair and they smell like chlorine. My guess is writers Charles Bohl and or Phillip Schneider must have been swimmers in school. What we have here is your typical teen movie with a predictable storyline and a very predictable ending. I guess you could say this is the teenage version of Fatal Attraction without the boiled bunny. To sum up the plot, we have Jesse Bradford (Ben Cronin of Clockstoppers) who is a good student, loving son and devoted boyfriend, oh yeah, he is a talented swimmer with Stanford swim scouts coming to see him. Okay, is there such a thing as swim scouts for Universities? Jesse has the pressure on, he has a week to really get into the zone for the big scout day. Swim rival Josh (Clayne Crawford of A Walk to Remember) is giving him a run for his money and sweet Amy Miller (Shiri Appleby) is so sappy and supportive she is willing to change college goals to be close to boyfriend Jesse, if Stanford calls him. Well enter the new girl, a southern belle named Madison Bell (Erika Christenen of Traffic) and a dead ringer for Julia Stiles. She plays the helpless maiden who can’t get into her locker, then conveniently leaves a book in Jesse’s car to get him to call. This stupid sap who follows his girlfriend around like a puppy dog and knows a fellow swimmer has the hots for this chick, still blows off everything to spend the evening with Madison. They end up at the school pool. Since when is a school pool available 24/7 to swim in, but okay this is a movie. Madison who can’t swim strips and seduces Jesse in the pool and demands he say he loves her. He doesn’t have to mean it, she just wants to hear it. Well she leaves her panties in his car and sends him numerous e-mails, pages, and phone calls. She befriends his girlfriend Amy and then demands to know when he will make time for her. Well he tells her off, and she goes off the deep end and wrecks havoc with his life, job and swim career. Oh, she also lets the school know they slept together so the girlfriend bails. Each scene is so predictable we have seen them done hundreds of times. The story is not even sound because the hospital where he works would have been out of business from lawsuits with the way it is shown in this film. The school with the lack of teachers or supervision would have been shutdown from lawsuits. Then the part of the story where Jake Donnelly (Monroe Mann) had his stuff brought in by the girlfriend from the rehab center (where was that kid’s parents) did not fit. Then the biggest snafu was the hairpin. Why the hell would Jesse be carrying Madison’s hairpin after all that took place? It just looks like director John Polson used any means he could to tie this weak story together so it would work. All it did was make bigger holes. Also appearing in this teen thriller was Dan Hedaya as Coach Simkins (Mulholland Drive), Nick Sandow as Detective John Zabel, Kate Burton, and Jason Ritter. The movie was entertaining despite the holes and predictability. The acting was also not a distraction. If I could get past all the work arounds used to tie the story together it would have been a decent movie. Instead I give Swimfan a solid six on the About-Movies.com scale. later
Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:47:58 AM Click Here to get back into frames.
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