JETSAM

In this low-budget British thriller, a young woman (Alex Reid) washes up on a North Sea beach. She discovers a computer disc in her pocket, but she can’t understand how it got there – or, for that matter, how she got there. While wandering about the shoreline in a daze, she finds a man lying on the sand. She revives him and he prompts attacks her. She begins racing along the beach, only to have a second man come out of nowhere to chase her.

This is not exactly your typical day at the seashore, and a shower of flashbacks reveals the woman is a London-based operative who has been involved in the surveillance of an important computer scientist. Her activities in the city inevitably gets connected to her unlikely adventures on the beach.

Whatever mystery “Jetsam” tries to generate winds up being squashed by a clumsy story. The film’s incessant ping-pong slam between past and present eventually becomes tiresome, and the less-than-satisfying plot twists wear out their welcome upon arrival. Since the film cannot hold the viewer’s interest on its intellectual merits, the bored spectator is forced to pick out distractions – including the joy of Alex Reid (she’s a lovely actress who looks great when wet) and the pain of cheap production values (the film was shot in 14 days for $5,000 – and looks it!).