If you don't know anything about this story, one that has failed to be made as a feature but now does get told through a feature length documentary--though one that uses recreated material almost more than real material recorded during the real events. The story is interesting and as one written account of the events explained well, this story almost doesn't sense unless you believe in ghost stories. And this film isn't interested in telling and showing the more ghostly elements and that's a failing as what's left is more routine and at a distance.
The trouble is if you search around on line a bit you'll find more complete versions of this story told in less time, both in print versions and an early shorter video version. Some of the unpleasant details need to be included and are left out here. They spend a bit too much time with pretty shots and recreation/reenactments of minor details while leaving out some admittedly horrible details that explain and give the true story real punch in it's critical moments.
The filmmakers want to respect the privacy of the tragedy, perhaps because they interview the real life people as part of the film, but this leaves out the drama in favor of a safe distance approach to these people's feelings. It doesn't challenge the people about if there is a legitimate reason the story happened at all.
There is a real question as to if Dave's quest was more to prove something to himself or really just give himself a bigger thrill, to find more worlds to conquer than it was some humanitarian effort. In bits filmed at the time Dave is shown being just a bit self aware and what soon proved to be overconfident in his own abilities. For one thing he doesn't really seem to be in very good physical shape.
Dave wore a camera on his head and eventually the film is building towards showing that point of view footage to explain and experience what his friend don says is in part a Snuff film. They end up showing so little of this footage that you are never really in Dave's shoes, Dave is trying to recover and body and the filmmakers seem intent on not showing you that body so only the murkiest parts are even shown and with very little explanation as to what's happening. Again others have done a much better job of handling the graphic and explanatory elements of Dave's mistakes and end, so it's not like an impossible task, just one this film fails to do well.
The film doesn't really come out with an answer if all this was worth it, though it suggests fairly successfully that diving is in a sense it's own reward, but in this case it's the survivors who really pay the price for that.
The center of this film is really Dave's friend Don and on that level it is at it's best.
