Bull Shark

I've seen a few reviews about how unrealistic it is about sharks living in freshwater lakes. There have been sightings and attacks in the Great Lakes, Lake Ontario, Trinity River. Lakes in Louisiana and California. So that part is probably the only true and good thing about this film. The public needs to be educated, but since this movie is more an SNL Jaws parody (without the comedic approach) they really dropped the ball. And really, it's not even about sharks. It's about a small Texas town with corrupt political figures and a game warden struggling with alcoholism, divorce and being a bad father. The sharks have small guest appearances a couple times and then some plastic fins a few other times. Nope. No thanks.

*The people behind this film have a funny stereotype of Texas. But seriously dude, we're not a bunch of beer drinking till we fall over drunk people.*

From acting of the xylemic variety, suboptimal sfx (not even Asylum level of film making) to the rickety camerawork, woeful script and shark aka a cardboard fin on a lollipop stick; much like the one the schoolkids used in Jaws II - perhaps the director was adding it as a homage to the original? Hmmm perhaps not, as his shark science was also totally inaccurate so I doubt he even watched Richard Dreyfuss in the original and that for me is unforgiveable as so much of the movie was a total carbon copy of Jaws right down to the rifle and bomb at the end; who knows but maybe it was a parody? Sadly the wobbly cardboard shark fin was not even meritorious of a giggle, just base derision with a soupçon of utter incredulity.

This one is a real cinematic stinkeroo, the kind of film you start to peruse the advancing timeline every few minutes and praying for it to move more rapidly - Never a good sign in my book!

The girl in the blue swimsuit with the terrible fake blood dribbling from her mouth at the beginning did have a nice gluteus maximus it has to be said but sadly even that is not enough to merit an extra star.

Just another shark dud movie to join the many others in Davy Jones' locker.

First off this movie was a free release on the net and I got what I paid for...not much!

First the good news. The lead actor Thom Hallum is an experienced actor but his character was so clichéd that it dominated and eventually overwhelmed his part in the movie.

Derek Woodford, the Sheriff was in the same boat (pun intended) but he was underused. He'd pop in and out of the movie and that was pretty much it.

After that the thespian qualities becomes very thin on the water. And here's the rub, I haven't even gotten around to discussing the story itself. The problem here is that there's hardly any story to discuss.

Sure, it was a change to have a shark movie about a fish other than a Great White, which really does get a bad rap in virtually all shark movies. And like the Great White, the Bull Shark (once known as Bronze Whalers) doesn't exactly like human food. And the same can be said about most sharks and humans.

So what shark does have a particular taste for people...it's the Tiger Shark. They'll go for a human and they'll follow until they chomp their way through the targeted food source.

Now you might be wondering why I know so much about sharks? Well I live in Australia and surfed for around forty years and had a shark swim under my board at the age of fourteen. Also, I've done a lot reading on the subject. And therein lies the problem with this production...there was a lack of research.

The movie itself was reasonable until one hour and three minutes and then it completely went off the (boat's) rails. I won't give it away but I seriously cracked up and by the end of the movie I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Now this isn't a spoiler but if you're trying to attract a shark you can do a number of things. One is to throw fish bait into the water. Another is to throw blood and meat into the water and that will have the same results. And a third method is to jump into the water and splash around. See the movie and you can see which one they accurately go for.

OK, so after this analysis there must be someone or something to blame. Well the production company is ITV and they are a low rent mob that are little better (or maybe worse) than The Asylum.

The second blame magnet is Brett Bentman who wrote and directed this woeful story. I mean for crying out loud all he had to do was start off with Wikipedia and then go to some sea world people and possibly approach an expert on the subject. Nah, too much work so he just made it up.

I could go on and on about movie but it's just too painful. So where will this disaster end up? The same place that all ITV productions end up...Tubi of course.

Oh and you have to wait until after the credits for the final nail in this production's coffin. It's a real humdinger.

I gave this movie two stars and that was for the first hour or so and zilch after that.

Have you ever been to a wine tasting? You know how between wines, you rinse your mouth out with water and then spit it out? Well, this movie is like that. If you've just watched a really good horror movie and you want to watch something really dumb to get all the scarey thoughts out of your mind so you can sleep at night?

If so, this is the movie for you!

After a series of strange attacks, the sheriff and game-warden at a small-town lake community slowly realize the stories about a killer bull shark living in the area are true and set out to corral the shark from attacking the community while trying to keep it quiet from the public.

This was a rather problematic indie shark movie. Among the few things this gets right is the generally fun series of attacks here that manage to overcome the low-budget indie setup in place. The initial attacks with the swimmers in the lake, including those that get dragged underwater and chomped on, generate some decent enough sequences to get an idea of what they're dealing with. The realism of the scenes featuring the shark just coming up and chomping on victims in a normal, grounded setting is quite fun that goes hand-in-hand with the equally grounded encounters trying to kill it. Relying on the more realistic nature of keeping the hunters in realistic boats and not going overboard with the stunt-work and action which is a nice touch that gives this some likable features. It's not that much but it keeps this one going somewhat. There are a few issues with this one. One of the main drawbacks here is the rather uninvolved setup that takes quite a while to get to anything interesting due to a flurry of cliches and formulaic setups. The focus on the family squabbling through a divorce due to his drunken habits, or alcoholism that's led to the divorce makes for a troubling start here filled with uninviting and cliched setups with family drama to start the film. The different forms of trouble found at the office, with the different offices attempting his contact him or going through the motions of contacting him for their own means manages to drag this one down even further into a slough that's rather hard to overcome since hardly any of these tie into the other storylines at play with a disjointed appearance. That doesn't take into account the fact that a majority of the story is so disjointed and chaotic that it's somewhat difficult to stay invested. Not only is this beginning tough to get into, but the secondary storylines involving the family strife and cover-ups that try to hide the shark's existence are also equally uninteresting and just fuel cliched setups that affect the pacing. As well, that also doesn't take into account the usual tropes surrounding this one including the highly underwhelming special effects at play. The shark is shown in a rather intriguing anatomically-accurate-yet-obviously-CGI setup that manages to make the shark look quite goofy and cheesy as a result since the focus on continuing the highly aggravating tactics of featuring it looks cheap. Not fitting into the environments, looking out of place due to the insertion into different settings and the ever-prominent dimension changes that take place which keeps it looking pretty underwhelming. Since there's not much in the way of practical effects here or even blood and gore featured here, this all helps to make it feel somewhat underwhelming.

Rated Unrated/R: Language and Violence.