L'année du requin

As I'm writing this review, there's just another one here about this movie and damn it's harsh!

No, it's not a masterpiece as Jaws or other shark movies can be.. Wait a minute, is there any other masterpiece in this genre ? Anyway, there are some very smart camera moves and really good use of short focal length lenses. I've been impressed several times of how intelligent some stuff are revealed on the screen.

Some actors are not that great and some shots feel a bit off, but it doesn't make this movie a bad one. It's honest and sincere and not "woke" (Damn, I hate this word) at all ! I had a pretty good time watching it and you might have one too.

And don't forget that you might need a bigger boat !

It hurts me to write this review because I like the three main actors, and enjoyed TEDDY, the former opus of the brothers Boukherma, but it's easily the worst French movie I saw in 2022.

There are a lot bad French movies, but with this one I kept wondering the whole time if Marina Foïs, Jean-Pascal Zadi and Kad Merad even read the script before accepting their part. To me it's a total failure, mixing unintentionally laughable drama, no-thrills shark movie and a little pinch of flat unfunny humor. Beyond that it's a huge waste of talents, I couldn't help laughing while watching Marina Foïs trying to keep serious in this dull mess. The worse point could be that it's one more nail in the coffin of European genre films, if I was an investor I wouldn't want that this kind of accident happens twice.

Can you make a movie about a seaside resort terrorized - or at least thrown off kilter - by a killer shark and not take *Jaws* into account? That's the question this movie posed for me. It does not, in any way that I caught, make reference to, much less offer a parody of, the famous horror film. That for me was a problem because it then becomes just another movie on the same subject, with radically reduced resources. The script offers no interesting new angles. So why bother?

If you're going to tackle the same subject as a very well-known film, you can either parody the predecessor or try to outdo it. This film did neither. So what was the point?

First I would like to get things straight. This is certainly not a comedy, and I really don't understand the rating of this film!

A film with a shark probably will have the misfortune to be compared with Jaws. Of course there are similarities, it's about a killer shark. There was a bit of comedy in Jaws, but that certainly didn't make it a comedy. The film is describing the life in a small French city with a very tourist seeking beach. We're in the city of La Pointe, not much happening, the city living off tourists.

Second in command at the police department Maja Bordenave (Marina Fois) is being told by German tourists that they have seen a shark. At the same time a man on a surfboard is missing.

The beach is closed as a leg is found with marks of shark teeths.

Maja is three days from retiring, 49 years old, starting young, but she wants to fight the shark. She is getting a week to solve the problem. With help from her colleagues Blaise (Jean-Pascal Zadi) and Eugenie (Christine Gautier) they hunt the shark down and shoot it with a tranquilliser, capturing it.

But that's not enough, soon the shark is hunting in La Pointe again. Maja is called an assassin, on the ground of more shark victims. She retires from her job.

Trying to relax with husband Thierry (probably the hardest working actor in France, Kad Merad) she really wants to end the horror and kill the shark. Nearly all in La Pointe don't want her help.

Well, that's except her former colleagues Blaise and Eugenie. The three sails out for the final fight with the shark... I think this is much better than what has been written on this site. This is a very good movie, and really this is a very fine acting all around, especially Marina Fois.

First off I am French so I watched it in French language.

It is supposed to be a comedy but it is not funny (dialogues, situations, etc... all are not funny) , it is excessively woke , the acting and production quality are below par.

AVOID don't waste your time or money !!

1/10.