Waist DeepMovies like Waist Deep
- Key Features:
- Crime, Gang violence, Kidnapping, Ex-convict, Father-son relationship, Redemption, Survival, Street life, Desperation, Action, Underworld, High stakes, Violence-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Action thriller fans, Crime drama enthusiasts, Viewers interested in urban stories, Fans of redemption narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Desperation → Determination → Hope
Waist Deep

An ex-convict gets tangled up with a gang after his car is hijacked with his son inside.
Waist Deep
Ryan Logan, a former Special Forces operative, is battling to cope with life after the loss of his wife. He is thrusted into the criminal underworld to keep his only son from being taken from him.

In 1992, Mercer is desperately trying to rebuild his life and his relationship with his son amidst the turbulent Los Angeles uprising following the Rodney King verdict. Across town, another father and son put their own strained relationship to the test as they plot a dangerous heist to steal catalytic converters, which contain valuable platinum from the factory where Mercer works. As tensions rise and chaos erupts, both families reach their boiling points when their worlds collide.

When a young soldier, newly returned from war, gets caught up in a drug bust, he is recruited by the authorities to go undercover in a notoriously dangerous prison in order to figure out what is really going on.

The story of Jody, a misguided, 20-year-old African-American who is really just a baby boy finally forced-kicking and screaming to face the commitments of real life. Streetwise and jobless, he has not only fathered two children by two different women-Yvette and Peanut but still lives with his own mother. He can't seem to strike a balance or find direction in his chaotic life.

When a rich man's son is kidnapped, he cooperates with the police at first but then tries a unique tactic against the criminals.

Ex-con Russell Gaines is attempting to rebuild his life with the help of his father, Mitchell. However, the arrival of Maben sends his new life into chaos, leading the pair to go on the run - as their violent pasts catch up to them, the pair must learn to trust each other if they hope to live out the rest of their days.

The rough-hewn boss of a lumber crew courts trouble when he steps in to protect the youngest member of his team from an abusive father.

When a drug heist swerves lethally out of control, a jaded cop fights his way through a corrupt city's criminal underworld to save a politician's son.

An ex-con reunites with his estranged wayward 16-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her.

When their daughter is abducted by experienced kidnappers, the Jennings turn the tables on their seemingly fool-proof plan.

Tommy Bundy and Sincere are best friends as well as infamous and ruthless criminals and shot-callers in the hood. Respected by many but feared by all. As the police are closing in on them and new players are looking for a come up, will their reign last?

When a former detective learns of the murder of his estranged son, he ventures back to the darkened streets he once knew so well. Armed, dangerous and with nothing to lose, he must take on the ruthless local mob in his mission for revenge.

After his son is wrongly accused of kidnapping, a deacon who has just lost his wife takes matters into his own hands and fights a crooked police gang to clear him.

Gang leader Tony pulls off a major diamond heist with his crew, but cop-turned-criminal Ling knows who has the loot and responds by kidnapping Tony's daughter and holding her for ransom. Unfortunately, Tony's lost the diamonds as well. As he frantically searches for his daughter and the jewels, Tony pairs with a high-kicking government agent who once worked with Ling and seeks revenge on him.

With her husband Jack perpetually away at work, Margaret Hall raises her children virtually alone. Her teenage son is testing the waters of the adult world, and early one morning she wakes to find the dead body of his gay lover on the beach of their rural lakeside home. What would you do? What is rational and what do you do to protect your child? How far do you go and when do you stop?

Divers searching for sunken treasure witness the murder of drug dealers by modern-day pirates, but a killer great white is determined not to let any of them escape its waters.

In the dark landscape of the Mississippi Delta, a former bare-knuckle fighter must win one last fight to pay off his debts to the local mob boss and save his childhood home—the stakes nothing less than life or death.

A limo ride turns hellish as several kidnappers set their sights on the young people inside.

After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape, as they are shuffled from one office to another while being chased by drug dealers and the police.

When his brother-in-law runs afoul of a drug lord, family man Chris Farraday turns to a skill he abandoned long ago—smuggling—to repay the debt. But the job goes wrong, and Farraday finds himself wanted by cops, crooks and killers alike.

The Thief pulls off the robbery of a lifetime when he robs the psychotic drug lord, Temple. The plan goes off without a hitch until the Thief discovers a stowaway in his getaway car - Temple's pregnant wife, Mia.

Ex-gang member John Henry is a quiet man with a violent past. When two immigrant kids on the run from his former South Los Angeles gang leader stumble into his life, John is forced to reconcile with his past in order to try and give them a future.

Out on parole after 8 years inside Bill Hayward returns home to find his now 11 and 15 year old sons abandoned by their mother and fending for themselves. Unwilling to play Dad, an uncaring Bill is determined to move on.

A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.

Victoria is a young mother trying to put her dark past as a Russian drug courier behind her, but retired cop Damon forces Victoria to do his bidding by holding her daughter hostage. Now, Victoria must use guns, guts and a motorcycle to take out a series of violent gangsters—or she may never see her child again.

Drug lord Dwayne Gittens rules Cincinnati with an iron fist. No wonder he's known as "God" on the streets. Determined to break Gittens' stranglehold on the city is undercover cop Jeffrey Cole. But as Cole takes on an assumed identity to penetrate Gittens' criminal empire, he makes a disturbing discovery -- he kind of likes being a gangster.

A single mom and her child are carjacked by a bank robber who has no intention of letting them go.

Mick O'Brien is a young Chicago street thug torn between a life of petty crime and the love of his girlfriend. But when the heist of a local drug dealer goes tragically wrong Mick is sentenced to a brutal juvenile prison where violence is a rite of passage and respect is measured in vengeance.

Tonny is released from prison - again. This time he has his mind set on changing his broken down life, but that is easier said than done.

With friends like these, who needs enemies? That's the question bad guy Porter is left asking after his wife and partner steal his heist money and leave him for dead -- or so they think. Five months and an endless reservoir of bitterness later, Porter's partners and the crooked cops on his tail learn how bad payback can be.

In Los Angeles, an ex-con takes the underground fighting world by storm in his quest to fulfill a promise to a dead friend.

An undercover cop teams up with a martial-arts expert to stop a gang of drug smugglers and car thieves.

A former fighter must find the missing son of an opponent he accidentally killed years ago, taking on a brutally violent crime gang in Marseille.

During a 10-year sentence for murdering the leader of a rival South Central Los Angeles gang, Bobby Johnson finds religion and rehabilitation with the help of Muslim inmate Ali. Upon his release, Bobby returns home to find that his young son, Jimmie, has joined the Deuces, his old crew. Tensions rise as Bobby struggles to convince Jimmie to leave the gang that was his only family during the painful years his absent father spent behind bars.

In search of a lifeline for his struggling off road racing team, a man takes on a young car thief looking for a second chance, but as their worlds collide, they must struggle to forge a successful alliance.

A recovering gambling addict attempts to reconcile with his family and friends but finds trouble and temptation when caught between feelings for his ex-wife and her dangerous hoodlum boyfriend.

A tough, Jewish ex-con just released from prison crosses a powerful drug dealer and former prison rival in his return to a life of crime.

The story centers on paroled white supremacist who has just killed a cop, and takes a black family hostage. Within hours of being released from 14 years of solitary confinement in maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison, Garrett Tully is on the run again. When he finds a house off a dirt road and takes a family hostage, he thinks the Aryan Brotherhood has his back–and his kidnap victims are black. The family’s patriarch, Mr. Walker, is a jaded ex-con who hates cops so much he disavowed his own son for becoming one. Seeing a familiar desperation in Tully, Walker refuses to call the authorities for help, causing familial tensions to escalate, and soon grave missteps are made.

J.D. Cahill is the toughest U.S. Marshal they've got, just the sound of his name makes bad guys stop in their tracks, so when his two young boy's want to get his attention they decide to rob a bank. They end up getting more than they bargained for.

A father is without the means to pay for his daughter's medical treatment. As a last resort, he partners with a greedy co-worker to rob a casino. When things go awry they're forced to hijack a city bus.

When the trail goes cold on a murder investigation of a policeman, an undercover narcotics officer is lured back to the force to help solve the case.

A father's eight year old son is murdered in a gangland shooting. The father gets himself thrown into prison to avenge his son's death.

A young street hustler attempts to escape the rigors and temptations of the ghetto in a quest for a better life.

In London, a drug dealer grows increasingly desperate over the course of a week after a botched deal lands him in the merciless clutches of a ruthless crime lord. The more desperate his behavior, the more isolated he becomes until there is nothing left standing between him and the bullet his debtors intend to fire his way.

Danny Trejo plays 'Bullet' a tough cop who takes the law into his own hands when his grandson is kidnapped.

A reformed sociopath heads to a remote island after the death of his brother. Soon after his arrival, the island falls under siege from a deadly gang of mercenaries, and when he discovers their role in his brother’s demise, he sets out on a relentless quest for vengeance.

While on a camping trip in order to reconnect, war veteran Colonel Lee Gunner must save his two sons from a gang of violent bikers when they're kidnapped after accidentally stumbling upon to a massive drug operation.

A tale of an inner city drug dealer who turns away from crime to pursue his passion, rap music.

Attempting to recover from a recent family trauma by escaping into the woods for a peaceful hiking trip, an ex-lawman and his young son stumble across a dangerous contract killer.

A drug pusher grows increasingly desperate after a botched deal leaves him with a large debt to a ruthless drug lord.

Phil Broker is a former DEA agent who has gone through a crisis after his action against a biker gang went horribly wrong and it cost the life of his boss' son. He is recently widowed and is left with a 9-years-old daughter, Maddy. He decides to quit the turbulent and demanding life of thrill for Maddy's sake and retires to a small town. His daughter fights off a boy who was bullying her at school and this sets in motion a round of events that end in his direct confrontation with the local Meth drug lord. His past history with the biker gang also enters the arena, making matters more complex. But he has a mission in his mind to protect his daughter and he is ready to pay any cost that it demands.

Follows a woman desperate to escape her town, she meets a stranger who promises a romantic escape, but it results in deceit, mistrust, and violence.

A newly-released prison gangster is forced by the leaders of his gang to orchestrate a major crime with a brutal rival gang on the streets of Southern California.

A man goes back to his hometown that is now overrun with crime and single-handedly takes justice into his own hands.

A rookie cop inadvertently captures the murder of a young drug dealer on her body cam. After realizing that the murder was committed by corrupt cops, she teams up with the one person from her community who is willing to help her as she tries to escape both the criminals out for revenge and the police who are desperate to destroy the incriminating footage.

After witnessing a brutal murder in a cabin, a man hides in a crawlspace while the killers scour the property for a hidden fortune. As they draw nearer, he must decide if the crawlspace will be his tomb or the battleground in his fight for survival.

A former Marine races against time to save a group of hostages -- including his young daughter and a congressman — when armed militants take over his stepfather's store.

The sordid lives of an addict, an ex-con, and a luchador collide when an organ harvesting caper goes very, very wrong.

Undercover Las Vegas police officer Vincent Downs, who has a lot of enemies, is caught in a high stakes web of corrupt cops and the mob-controlled casino underground. When a heist goes wrong, a crew of homicidal gangsters kidnap Downs’ teenage son T. In one sleepless night, Downs will have to rescue his son, evade an internal affairs investigation, and bring the kidnappers to justice.

Fresh out of prison, a former debt collector working for a gangland boss is told he has a terminal brain tumour. In an attempt to atone for his past he rescues a young girl from trafficking, forcing him into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with his boss.

When U.S. Rangers and an elite Delta Force team attempt to kidnap two underlings of a Somali warlord, their Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, and the Americans suffer heavy casualties, facing intense fighting from the militia on the ground.

After being double crossed by his most trusted operative, a ruthless crime lord takes revenge by kidnapping the her son. Overwhelmed with fear, the operative is given one night to make up for her misdeeds by systematically eliminating his enemies. As the hours rush by, the steaks begin to rise and the darkened city streets turn into a brutal and bloody battle ground.

With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee.

A rogue submarine captain pulls together a misfit crew to go after a sunken treasure rumored to be lost in the depths of the Black Sea. As greed and desperation take control on-board their claustrophobic vessel, the increasing uncertainty of the mission causes the men to turn on each other to fight for their own survival.

An old gangster is advised that Freddie Mays would leave jail after thirty years in prison. His mood changes and he recalls when he was a young punk and who joined Freddie's gang—a man he both envied and ultimately betrayed.

A young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.

To bring down a global human trafficking ring, an Interpol agent recruits the help of a brutal criminal with inside knowledge of the yakuza.

Master thief Will Montgomery is just released from the State penitentiary after serving a 10 year sentence, is contacted by Vincent, his ex comrade in crime, who is holding Will’s teenage daughter ransom in a hijacked taxi cab. Vincent will only surrender her when Will reveals the whereabouts of the 20 million dollars he contrived to conceal from their last robbery.

Two strangers are drawn together under incredible circumstances. What starts as an unforeseen encounter over a long holiday weekend soon becomes a second chance love story.

A former special forces agent is trapped in a time loop and relives his death over and over again. To escape the terrible situation, he must track down those responsible and stop them.

When a job goes horribly wrong, an ex-cop and family man who moonlights as a mob henchman has one night to get his family out of the city.

A former U.S. Navy Seal is forced to become the international criminal he once fought against when a powerful and violent drug cartel kidnaps his wife and daughter.

An ex-con battles it out in the cage to pay for the operation that would save the daughter of his victim. Along the way he finds fatherly love, and friendship, in the most unlikely of places.

A conservative Midwest businessman ventures into the sordid underworld of pornography in search of his runaway teenage daughter who’s making hardcore films in the pits of Los Angeles.

Construction company owner John Matthews learns that his estranged son, Jason, has been arrested for drug trafficking. Facing an unjust prison sentence for a first time offender courtesy of mandatory minimum sentence laws, Jason has nothing to offer for leniency in good conscience. Desperately, John convinces the DEA and the opportunistic DA Joanne Keeghan to let him go undercover to help make arrests big enough to free his son in return. With the unwitting help of an ex-con employee, John enters the narcotics underworld where every move could be his last in an operation that will demand all his resources, wits and courage to survive.

Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle. While out on the road one day, Jack notices a distressed child, and, after reuniting the girl with her family, becomes a local celebrity. But when a local newspaper unearths his past, Jack must cope with the anger of citizens who fear for the safety of their children.

A career criminal who has been deformed since birth is given a new face by a kindly doctor and paroled from prison. It appears that he has gone straight, but he is really planning his revenge on the man who killed his mentor and sent him to prison.

An aging ex-boxer gangster working as muscle for a Boston crime boss receives an upsetting diagnosis. Despite a faltering memory, he attempts to rectify the sins of his past and reconnect with his estranged children. He is determined to leave a positive legacy for his grandson, but the criminal underworld isn’t done with him and won’t loosen their grip willingly.

When Erin Bell was a young cop, she was given an undercover assignment that ended badly and destroyed her life. Years later, she must face her demons in order to make peace with her past.

A male prison escapee heads for his hidden loot, electronically attached to a female prisoner.

A hardened gun-for-hire's latest mission becomes a soul-searching race to survive when he's sent into Bangladesh to rescue a drug lord's kidnapped son.

Soon after his insufferably arrogant father wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry, Barkley Michaelson is kidnapped by Thaddeus James, a young genius who claims to be Barkley's illegitimate half-brother. Motivated not so much by money as revenge, Thaddeus tries to convince Barkley to help him carry out a multimillion-dollar extortion plot against their patriarch.

A steely special ops agent finds his morality put to the test when he infiltrates a crime syndicate and unexpectedly bonds with the boss' young son.

While on a prison furlough, a lowly criminal evades his guards and returns to his old stomping ground to take revenge on the people who turned him into a cold blooded killer.

A basketball player's father must try to convince him to go to a college so he can get a shorter prison sentence.

Armored truck security guard James Brody is working with his son Casey transporting millions of dollars between banks when a team of thieves led by Rook orchestrate a takeover of their truck to seize the riches. Following a violent car chase, Rook soon has the armored truck surrounded and James and Casey find themselves cornered onto a decrepit bridge.

Hiding out with his son Taylor on the Mexican coast, Nero hopes to put his violent Special Forces career behind him. But after Nero’s home is attacked and Taylor is abducted, the mysterious Mzamo orders Nero to slaughter the members of three rival crime syndicates. If he fails, Taylor will die. Now, with bullets flying and bodies dropping as Nero completes his mission, he races to find Mzamo’s hideout and seek revenge.

Juvenile delinquents are sent to a small British island after a fellow prisoner's death, where they must fight for survival.

A solo trip aboard a yacht takes a terrifying turn when a woman encounters three drug traffickers clinging to the shattered remains of a boat. They soon force her to dive into shark-infested waters to retrieve kilos of cocaine from the sunken wreck.

An ex-mercenary turned smuggler. A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.

Mark Kaminsky is kicked out of the FBI for his rough treatment of a suspect. He winds up as the sheriff of a small town in North Carolina. FBI Chief Harry Shannon, whose son has been killed by a mobster named Patrovina, enlists Kaminsky in a personal vendetta with a promise of reinstatement into the FBI if Patrovina is taken down. To accomplish this, he must go undercover and join Patrovina's gang.

A former NCAA champion wrestler is paroled after 10 years in prison. Now, to save a friend's life, in a series of cage fights he must agree to do the impossible - lose.

John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.

What started as a simple escort mission will soon turn to chaos as the prisoners of Koh Kla take over the prison grounds. A special task force gets trapped in the prison will have to fight their way out for survival, to protect a key witness.

Four adopted brothers return to their Detroit hometown when their mother is murdered and vow to exact revenge on the killers.

Redemption tells the story of Stan "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips L.A. street gang. Story follows his fall into gang-banging, his prison term, and his work writing children's novels encouraging peace and anti-violence resolutions which earned him multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations. After exhausting all forms of appeal, Tookie was executed by lethal injection.

One of the members of a gang of thieves commits a serious mistake that force them to work for a ruthless gang of drug dealers, endangering the future of the team, their lives and those of their families.


