With each year that passes, Sean Astin's stock seems to fall lower and lower, the budgets of his movies diminishing over time. THE SURFACE is another rung in that ever-descending ladder. It's a cheaply-shot two-hander about two men adrift in a small boat at sea. One of them is injured and has a murky past, and there are minor thriller aspects to the plot, but overall this is a character study of two broken men and the mess they've made of their lives. I'm normally no fan of such productions, finding them boring, but this film's script isn't so bad and Chris Mulkey in particular is a strong enough actor to make it interesting.

I was starting to watch Martin Scorsese's star-studded Hollywood blockbuster_The Departed_, and I turned it off after about 30 minutes. I was sick of all the tough guy talk and violence. I just can't relate to mafia gangsters, never have, never will. Sorry, Marty.

I was in mood for a simple, straightforward movie about real, relatable people. I found that in _The Surface_, a hidden gem of a movie that undoubtedly made no money.

It's a low budget indie film, and it's certainly not perfect. Some of the dialog is stilted, the acting is sometimes uneven, and the camera work is not particularly creative. But it tells a good story, partly through flashbacks, but mostly through the dialog of two men stranded in a small boat miles offshore from Milwaukee in Lake Michigan.

Mitch (Sean Astin) is a nerdy type who has suffered so much loss in his life that he decides to take his late father's boat out on the lake and commit suicide. The boat runs into some debris from a crashed small plane, whose pilot, Kelly (Chris Mulkey), is desperately hanging on to the wing. Mitch rescues him, but his boat has been damaged, and the two men are adrift. Kelly is badly injured. There is no cell phone service, and Mitch has not bothered to bring a ship to shore radio since he never intends to return home.

This not a _Perfect Storm_ / man vs. nature action film. The majority of the scenes consist of the two men conversing, and in those conversations, along with a few flashbacks, we learn their backstories. Mitch is young; Kelly is older and wiser, which makes for an interesting dynamic.

Sounds simple, and it is--sometimes bordering on simplistic. There are some implausibilities: As far as I know, you can't slam around a jar of nitroglycerin around without it blowing up. Mitch's backstory is so tragic, it's a bit over the top. And why is there suddenly a cell phone signal at a critical moment toward the end? But aside from that, there is something about the stories of the two men that's keeps us watching--and, of course wondering if they will be rescued.

Some indie films try to impress us with weirdness or jarring camera work. This one eschews all of that and just tells a straightforward story.

No spoilers here concerning the ending, but the simple message of this movie is that if you can't control fate, you can at least control what you choose to do with your life.

It's worth a watch if you're in a thoughtful frame of mind. Not a colossal, mind-blowing film, but it suited my rather introspective mood, and it might suit yours.