A shipboard comedy about a time-travelling assassin who falls for his target. I’ve seen plenty of films about killer’s falling for their targets before. But Chris Roberti has found a new twist and served it up in Same Boat. Does he actually deliver something new, or is it just a new layer of gloss on an old plot?
The opening card tells us that in the 29th Century time travel will be perfected and assassins will be sent back to kill those who would damage to the future. Yes, I know that violates just about every rule concerning time travel that’s every been promulgated. Same Boat just ignores it beyond mentioning “if you repeat a mission you die.”.
We open with James (Chris Roberti) and his trainee Mot (Julia Schonberg) at work, killing a couple on a beach. Their crime? They would have invented reality television. I think we can classify this as justifiable homicide.
From here we move to a cruise ship where Lilly (Tonya Glanz) breaks up with her boyfriend Rob (Evan Kaufman). The first day of a cruise seems a rather bad time to do that, but there you have it. Meanwhile, James and Mot are also on board and running into trouble. Mot is seasick and the paperwork with the mission’s details has gone missing. With nothing else to do James wanders around the boat where he meets and falls for Lilly. When his instructions turn up, he’s not going to be a happy assassin.
While I knew I wasn’t going to be getting any Terminator type thrills I was hoping for something along the lines of Mega Time Squad at least. Instead for most of its length, Same Boat is an unfunny and contrived rom-com with annoying characters I wished would get killed. That includes the two fat and horny crew members who are there for particularly cheap laughs.
The last act tries to be poignant and profound but it falls as flat as the humour. Maybe if I had a reason to care about anyone by that point it would have worked. But the previous hour made sure I didn’t care. Same Boat wasted a novel idea and my time. I’m not sure which is worse.
Dark Star Pictures will release Same Boat On Demand April 7th. You can check the film’s Facebook page and website for more details.