Shark - Stunde der Entscheidung

A couple of Mexican-based anglers are inadvertently caught up in a messy corporate extortion plot when Williams' brother scams two million in diamonds from a corrupt businessman (Steiner). Steiner deploys his right hand man to clean things up, and Williams' sultry ex-wife (Agren) tries to convince him to quit while he's ahead. Meanwhile, a deadly ocean predator nicknamed "The Cyclops" is stalking Williams, taking bites out of tourists and showing up whenever there's action in the water.

I've read the reviews and while I agree it's no Oscar contender, it's still not that bad in my opinion. Ramon Bravo's underwater tiger shark tussling and the subsequent attacks are reasonably well orchestrated and realistic.

The cast is solid including Swedish bombshell Agren, Italian beauty Soldano as Williams' current squeeze, Huggy Bear (Fargas) and former "Peyton Place" soap star Christopher Connelly in his last film before his untimely death (his trademark raspy voice is very feint, perhaps suggesting he was unwell). Throw in the ubiquitous Brit of Italo-slasher John Steiner, and you've got a well-appointed cast.

A general undercurrent humour doesn't really elevate the tone, but it at least doesn't take itself too seriously, and the momentum is reasonably brisk. So for your approximate one $$ investment you've got a B-grade Italian crime flick, including two goddesses, a certified Silver-standard international cast, AND a tiger shark tearing up the stragglers - me no complain.

NIGHT OF THE SHARKS begins with shots of a shark swimming languidly along, while David Ziegler (Treat Williams) and his friend Paco (Antonio "Huggy Bear" Fargus) sun themselves on a nearby beach.

Oh no!

The shark wakes up and kills an unknown extra! David and Paco continue to relax. We discover that, in addition to sunbathing, David likes to yell at sharks.

Meanwhile, seemingly in some other movie, David's brother has absconded with something from "the mob". So, these two storylines intersect, which somehow makes this movie even less intriguing.

Unfortunately, there's just not enough shark action, especially considering the title. Mostly, this is about the brother's troubles being brought down on David and poor Paco, interrupting their relaxation to the nth degree. Fans of Mr. Williams and Huggy Bear will be ecstatic. Everyone else will probably need a cranial enema...

Extremely low-budget Italian-import-exploitation involving one of the most familiar plot-lines: a flaky sibling and their inevitable, semi-deserved death from being involved with the seedy crime world to begin with...

Leading to vengeful, tropical-shark-hunting older brother Treat Williams (with sidekick Antonio Fargas and priest Christopher Connelly), whose balmy paradise gets encroached by killers... either the dorsal-finned kind or those wearing cheap suits, providing danger from the blood-soaked ocean to a machine-gunned jungle...

Throwback to the previous decade's pulpy third-world body-count action programmers, combined with what, at the time, was technologically modern: the blackmailing brother had damning information not on the usual spy-genre microfilm, but something called a CD...

Making NIGHT OF THE SHARKS more a would-be thriller than what the adventurous title attempts in a rushed third act, and, with a techno track by iconic composer Stelvio Cipriani under a similar MIAMI VICE-influence of director Tonino Ricci, this SHARK -- on land or sea or foam -- is decent way to either fill or waste ninety-minutes.

Until near the end, this movie cannot seem to decide what it is. Is it an action film, a horror movie, or a crime movie? It won't take you long to figure out what kind of movie it is, it's a boring movie! Good cast is completely wasted in one of the most contrive and lazily produced Italian films I've seen. Good fight scenes and some gore, but that is basically it. Nothing else worth mentioning, besides the cheesy soundtrack. Treat Williams... I don't believe I've ever seen him in a movie that didn't have lots and lots of water in it. Sheesh. Avoid this flick, not worth the trouble.

I wanted this movie to be a "so bad it's good" gem very much. The cover looked like a classic 80s cheese-fest that would fill me with much joy and laughter. The opening scene was promising. However, my initial expectations were eventually butchered and thrown into the water like fish bait.

The movie gave me little to no reason to invest in the characters. There's almost no backstory for anyone including the lead, David (Treat Williams). What little backstory you get isn't really explored or establishes solid character motivation. Even with the lack of character development, I was at least hoping for some charismatic acting or cheesy dialogue to keep me entertained. Unfortunately, there isn't much of it.

The soundtrack was laughably terrible. I'm sure they used the same track of suspense music for every "tense" moment in the movie whether it was a gun fight or a shark attack. It is super irritating after having heard it for the 100th time. It will forever be ingrained in my memory.

I wasn't expecting a stellar plot or anything but it was a complete mess. It's like the writer said, "I want to make Diamonds Are Forever," but the director said, "I want to make Jaws." So they compromised and combined them into one movie.

As bad as this movie was, there were a few moments that were enjoyable. Almost all of them involved the shark (or sharks? I'm not sure cause they seemed to use footage of multiple species like tigers, lemons, reefs and maybe bull sharks). The attacks were well shot and edited cutting between real and fake sharks. Not saying it was Jaws quality but decent enough for a movie like this.

In the end, there really isn't enough "so bad it's good" moments in this movie to recommend it. It's really boring for long stretches and the scenes with the shark are too few and far between to justify wasting 86 minutes of your life (it felt way longer than 86 minutes).

FUN FACT: Did you know tiger sharks can roar? I didn't until I watched this movie. Maybe a "nod" to a worse film, Jaws: The Revenge.