Jaws Movie Review

Copyright Universal Studios

Well the "Greats" section of this site has been dead for a while so lets liven it up by throwing a giant killer shark at it.

Jaws needs no introduction as its probably one of the most well known films ever made, but if you've been living under a rock since 1975 Jaws is based on a book by Peter Benchley and is set on the fictional Amity Island which comes under attack from a great white shark.

So that's the basic plot but before we take a look at the film in more detail lets address the elephant in the room, the sequels this film got. The first of them Jaws 2 was watchable thanks to some of the cast returning, Jaws 3 needs its own review just so I can pull apart that trainwreck and finally the less said about Jaws 4 the better.

Back onto something better then, this is Jaws.

So we open to a group of teenagers on a beach, one of them Chrissie Watkins , drags hapless guy out to the sea with her for a spot of late night swimming. Of course the guy she brought there passes out drunk while she swims, going out too far and falling victim to a shark. The next day new police chief Martin Brody, played by Roy Scheider, finds grisly evidence of the woman's death thanks to a now rather fake looking severed hand. He immediately suspects a shark attack and wants to close the beaches but Mayor Larry Vaughn, played by Murray Hamilton, won't let the beaches close as they are vital to Amities tourist season, the only time the town makes money. The coroner thinks that the girl was killed in a boating accident. This is the story that the town runs with until another fatal shark attack occurs. This time the victim is a young boy called Alex. A bounty is then placed on the shark leading to a bunch of would be shark hunters showing up from all across America in the hopes of bagging the killer. Eventually a shark is caught and killed, a Tiger shark and a rather large one at that.

Meanwhile Brody has enlisted the services of Marine Biologist Matt Hooper, played by Richard Dreyfus, who wants to cut open the shark and examine the remains what whatever its eaten recently. The Mayor tells them that he doesn't want them to do that now as the last thing he wants the papers to see is the remains of the boy spill out over the dock.

Hooper and Brody return to the shark later that day and when Hooper cuts it open surprise surprise theres not sign of Alex or Chrissie. Hooper hypothesies that this is not the shark that stalks the waters of Amity. They decided to go out in Hoopers boat to dive the night waters hoping to find the shark. Hooper does find a large tooth lodged in the side of a sunken boat however when trying to remove it a partially decayed corpse falls from the hull frightening him, in what remains a brilliant jump scare. Meanwhile local shark hunter Quint, played by Robert Shaw, also known as the best thing in this movie offers his services to hunt and kill the shark all done in his legendary "Head, the tail, the whole damn thing" line.

Anyway back to Hooper and Brody. The mayor has dismissed their claims that a great white shark lives in the waters around Amity and once again refuses to close the beaches. On the fourth of July the beaches are packed, out at sea the police are looking for sharks, they think they found one until its revealed to be nothing more than some kids with a cardboard fin. But the real shark manages to swim up a nearby estuary it kills a boater which causes Brody's oldest son Micheal to go into shock. This incident makes Brody convince Vaughn to hire Quint.

At this point the film stops being a tense horror/thriller hybrid and moves into the realm of the action movie, with the shark being more heavily featured along with building the friendships between Brody, Quint and Hooper.

The three men head out to sea in Quints boat the Orca. While the three men in a boat hunt for the shark Brody lays down some chum to attract the shark, this works a little too well as the shark pops up nearly taking Brody's arm off which gives us both our first real look at the shark and the famous line "We're gonna need a bigger boat". Quint estimates the length of the shark to be around 25 feet and manages to harpoon it with a line that was attached to flotation barrel but the shark pulls the barrel down.

And now, my favorite part of the film. That night Quint, Hooper and Brody drunkenly exchange stories about their scars and Quint reveals that he survived the USS Indianapolis, this whole scene is masterfully done, from the pacing that Shaw tells the story with to the way the camera is placed. The shark returns and rams the boats hull which disables their engines, they work through the night in order to mend the engine.

The next morning Brody attempts to call the coast guard but Quint has become obsessed with killing the shark without needing outside help so he smashes the radio. Following a lengthy chase with the shark Quint harpoons another barrel into it, this time the line is tied to the stern but the shark pulls the boat back which floods the deck and swamps the engine. Quint prepares to sever the line to prevent the transom from being pulled out but the cleats break off, keeping the barrels attached to the shark. Quint heads toward shore to draw the shark into shallower waters, but he intentionally pushes the damaged engine past the safety limits and the overtaxed engine fails.

With the ship now slowly sinking the three men in a boat try a riskier move, Hooper puts on scuba gear and gets into a shark cage in order to get close enough to inject the shark with a lethal poison using a hypodermic spear, but this plan fails as the cage is destroyed by the shark before Hooper can do anything. The shark then attacks the boat itself and devours Quint in a scene were the blood effects still hold up. Trapped on the sinking vessel, Brody jams a pressurized scuba tank into the shark's mouth, and, climbing the crow's nest, says "smile ya son of a bi*ch" and shoots the tank with a rifle. The resulting explosion obliterates the shark. It turns out Hooper survived the cage destruction and surfaces, he and Brody paddle back to Amity Island clinging to the remaining barrels.

And that was Jaws.

Well what can I say its a classic suspense film that still holds up to this day which has given us some amazing lines that have burned into film history, the relationships and banter between the three men in a boat is one of this films highlights and lets face it Robert Shaw's portrait of Quint is the absolute best thing in this film. I mean just try and imagine Quint being played by anyone else.