A well-made film which efficiently manipulate its elements of suspense and horror...

Rating: 9/10 (9 August 2003)

The film opens with a shot of a group of teenagers enjoying a campfire out on Amity beach... A couple leaves the group for a midnight swim... The silhouette of a woman is seen in full flight toward the sea... Her dress, bra, and panties fly toward her drunk admirer who can't make a fist to catch them...
In a delicate splash, Chrissie goes swimming in the cold ocean, drawing herself into deeper water... When a wave of pressure lifts her up and eases her down, her face begins to show a certain fear... Her eyes go to the beach where her friend, too drunk to stand, is struggling with his shoe...
Chrissie turns and starts for shore... But her expression freezes... Something terrible is hurting her underneath... She struggles with all her forces, but she is soon submerged in a horrifying scene...
Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) reacts quickly to the news of shark attack, and emerges with enough poster-board, wooden stakes, nails, paint and brushes to close every beach on the island...
But as Amity is a beautiful summer resort with clean air, clear water, and beautiful white sand beaches... Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) tries with his town officials to convince the insecure police chief to file the incident as a 'boating accident.'
Brody reluctantly agrees, but later regrets his decision after few more fatal incidents... The shark has claimed Amity Island as his territory...
Quint (Robert Shaw), an eccentric old shark killer, offers to kill the menacing Great White Shark for ten thousand dollars...
Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), an arrogant young oceanographer, proves that the giant shark that killed Christine Watkins is still on the loose... 'They caught a shark. Not the shark,' he determines... and predicts future outbursts of attack activity in the area...
Brody, Quint and Hooper become allied in a life-and-death hunt... They go after the monstrous creature with rifles and poison pistols... They try to tire him, slowing him down with coiled ropes and barrels... They fight him with everything, harpoons, poles, gaffs and compressed air tanks...
Shaw is absolutely convincing as the colorful master fisherman whose obsession for destroying sharks was triggered by an actual incident in World War II...
Scheider is quiet likable as the dedicated family man who doesn't even like the water, swimming or boating... His line to Quint ('You're going to need a bigger boat.") suggests a specific cause...
Dreyfuss manages to humanize the picture while stealing it...
Spielberg alarms us with unexpected twists, and heart-stopping scenes wonderfully engaging... His grasp for sustaining the feeling of terror comes not only from what we see, but from what we're afraid we're going to see... He uses an imposing classical score to prepare the audience for something really scary that is about to show up...
With every breath, every thought, heart beat and movement, the realism of the increasing menace is present from the opening to the end... And believe me, we are never allowed the relief of looking away from the screen