You Know the Thing About a Shark, Chief?......

Rating: 9/10 (8 August 2007)

I can barely relax in a swimming pool to this day because of Steven Spielberg's ultimate shark movie.
I've become a detractor of Spielberg in his more recent years as a director, but "Jaws" represents him doing what he does best: putting fun popcorn movies on screen and using his shameless powers of manipulation to thrill us rather than wrench tears from us. Give me "Jaws" and "Raiders" over "Schindler's List" or "Saving Private Ryan" any day.
Acting in movies like this gets overlooked, but I think "Jaws" would not be the classic we remember it as today without the marvelous trio of actors who play the men on the hunt of that pesky great white: Roy Scheider, as police chief Brody, whose sense of duty and obligation outweighs his morbid fear of water and the unknown; Richard Dreyfuss, as a cocky scientist mesmerized by the beauty and the majesty of the creature they're hunting; and Robert Shaw, in an off-his-rocker performance as Quint, loony shark hunter, the Captain Ahab of Amity. These three together deliver one of the best depictions of male bonding ever put on screen.
Peter Benchley greatly improved his own book for the screen. The book is full of boring subplots and lengthy passages told from the shark's point of view. The screenplay, on the other hand, is streamlined and crisp, not pushing the story beyond its modest bounds, and reducing it to a basic man against nature -- or man against his own worst fears -- tall tale. It's like "Deliverance" lite.
And that John Williams score.....oh, that score......
Grade: A