It's a Carcharodon carchariasÂ…a great white

Rating: 9/10 (31 March 2002)

No need to bore the reader with the plot details because anyone who is the least bit familiar with this film knows what it is about. Jaws is one of those movies I never get tired of. It is still as entertaining and suspenseful now as it was when I first saw it on the big screen in the 70s. Spielberg does a wonderful job in not showing the actual shark until the latter part of the film. It really helps to build the suspense, leaving it up to the viewer's imagination as to what Amity and its people are really up against. A masterful musical score by John Williams helps to move this along wonderfully. The score really breathes life in to the movie. The music is so recognizable today that most die-hards of the cinema are instantaneously familiar with it. Jaws is similar to his previous film, Duel, about strife between man and leviathan, the leviathan being a truck and its faceless driver. In Jaws the leviathan is a great white.

I feel the movie does a splendid job in showing the emotional strife that Chief Brody undergoes as the movie progresses. As the film opens, he is a sheriff who is quite happy doing his job on Amity without any real problems compared to what he once faced in his job prior to living on Amity. Then he transforms into a man under a great deal of pressure and anxiety as he encounters a problem bigger than anything he ever faced before.

Numerous films were compared to Jaws throughout the 70s and early 80s. It was a huge phenomenon when it came out launching a plethora of rip-offs, some good, some horrible. The movie has great dialogue, editing, music and characters that help to make this one of the classic films from the 1970s. Robert Shaw's role as Quint is one for the ages. He really brought his character to life with a memorable performance worthy of an Oscar.

For me, the best part of the film is when Brody, Hooper and Quint head out to sea to capture and/or kill the Great White. So many wonderful moments in the last part of the film that bring out a wide variety of emotions including laughter, tension, anxiety, sorrow and finally a sense of relief when the shark is killed.
I have a friend that feels there are a lot of correlations between Jaws and Moby Dick. Bruce the Shark is to Quint what Moby Dick was to Captain Ahab. It's up to the viewer to believe whether this is the case or not. And finally, for what it's worth, all the dress jackets that Murray Hamilton (Mayor Larry Vaughn) wears in the film, including the one with the little anchors, are some of the worst I've seen in movies to date.