Inspired by true events, The Red Sea Diving Resort is a decent, workmanlike spy thriller. Low on surprises and not much tension – just enough to get a reasonable kick out of. Throw in a cast of attractive actors that are charming enough to prop up underwritten characters and you’ve got yourself a perfectly acceptable snack of a spy film.
A particularly hunky Chris Evans stars as Ari Levinson, a reckless, but committed Mossad operative who comes up with an outlandish plan to smuggle Ethiopian Jew refugees through Sudan in the 1980s.
He leads a team of Mossad agents to an abandoned hotel – the titular Red Sea Diving Resort – and intends to use it a front to evacuate the flood of refugees by sea.
Naturally, lots of things go wrong along the way. There’s pressure from ruthless Sudanese soldiers, obviously, but it’s the unexpected arrival of actual tourists that really throws the Mossad team for a loop. Now they have to turn the resort into an actual hotel, to avoid raising suspicion! How kooky.
There’s tension inside the team as well, what with Ari’s close friend Sammy (Alessandro Nivola) questioning his reckless leadership. Nivola turns in a really good performance, which is nice since Sammy for some reason is the only one on the team to get a bit more characterisation and drama.
Early on, we’re told that Ari’s work has put distance between him and his family, but that really doesn’t go anywhere. Once they’re off to Sudan, it’s all but forgotten – save for a hilarious last minute resolution with a kid’s drawing that comes out of nowhere.
The conflict between Sammy and Ari also gets resolved fairly easily. Sammy gets a big dramatic scene where he calls him out, they have a bit of a scuffle and then they just patch it up. It’s the character development equivalent of a half-shrug.
While it may not take advantage of Chris Evans’ acting chops, The Red Sea Diving Resort is certainly aware that Chris Evans is hot – and it wastes no opportunities to show that off.
Oh no, Ari and Sammy have been arrested! Oh well, Ari might as well do some pull-ups in his cell while they’re waiting, eh? Then there’s the shirtless scenes, the tight shirt scenes, the half-open diving suit scenes – it’s shameless, but damn it, it’s effective.
Chris Chalk does a very good job as antagonist Col. Abdel Ahmed, with a cool demeanour and an unsettling smile that lingers just a touch too long to be sincere. Ben Kingsley and Greg Kinnear pop up in small supporting roles and get a few memorable lines (‘This job pays in migraines’) .
There are moments that might stick with you – the fun ones include Sammy imitating the noise of a copier, so that the guests think their passports are being copied; aerobics and diving with undercover Mossad agents; a fairly slick transition from a kid playing with a plane to an actual plane in the air.
On the heavier side, there’s a scene early on of a refugee who breaks off from her group as they ford a river. She lets the water take her and disappears. It’s a haunting moment, even if the movie lingers on it a bit too long.
The Red Sea Diving Resort doesn’t really explore the suffering of the refugees. It touches on it enough to make the audience sympathetic, which isn’t the worst kind of exploitative, but it’s still not that great.
Overall, the movie is fine. A breezy, forgettable, enjoyable enough kind of fine. Exactly the kind of movie you watch on Netflix when you have nothing better to do (or you just don’t want to do it.) Chris Evans fans will get a lot of mileage out of it, for sure.
The Red Sea Diving Resort is out now, on Netflix.