Jaws

In the peaceful little island community of Amity they have a major problem. A young woman was found dead, killed by what could only have been a shark. Police Chief Brody (Roy Schneider) is all ready to shut down the beaches, but is stopped by Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton). It's the Fourth of July weekend coming up and the mayor doesn't want anything to stop all the tourists coming up and spending money.  Even when a second person, this time a young boy is killed, he only shuts the beaches down for 24 hours.

The boy's mother puts out a reward for anyone who can kill the shark and what seems like every single fisherman from all over the country shows up to hunt the shark. Fortunately for Brody, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), a shark expert for a university, also shows up to help.  When the fishermen actually manage to catch a shark Hooper realizes that it isn't the right shark.  He also finds a tooth, showing that the shark is a great white, not the tiger shark that was caught.

After a third attack, where a man is killed and Brody's son Michael (Chris Rebello) was almost eaten, Brody forces the mayor to sign and pay for a contract shark hunter. Quint (Robert Shaw) is a grizzly old sailor that has hunted sharks from the island for who knows how many years. Brody and Hooper join Quint on his boat as they go after the killer shark. What follows is a long battle between the three man and the shark, where the shark eventually loses but not before it takes Quint out first.

There is a reason this movie is classic; it's just so awesome. It's suspenseful and  thrilling and just plain excellent. Even more than thirty years later, it still holds up to today's standards. The acting is superb (though I did have a few problem understanding what Shaw was saying half the time), the writing was excellent and even though there weren't that many special effects, it really did look like they were beside a real shark... not all the time, but a good part of the time.

The only problem I have is that according to the Mythbusters half of the feats the shark accomplished are physically impossible, but that is pretty much the point of the movie. It is a super killer shark, one capable of things that no ordinary shark can do. Another problem I had was with the exploding air tank. It wouldn't explode like that in real life. It would still kill the shark I'm sure, but not in such a dramatic fashion.

Ignoring that, it was still a kick ass movie. 

Grade: 9/10