"This was not a boat accident!"

Rating: 10/10 (26 June 2012)

*The* original, classic man vs. nature thriller that ushered in the era of the "summer blockbuster", "Jaws" remains vivid, believable, and highly effective, more than 40 years after it was first released. Everything about it is memorable, from its set pieces to its shocks to its cast to its music to a young Steven Spielbergs' masterful direction, and these elements can thrill even the viewer who's seen them before. Any summer season simply wouldn't be complete without a viewing of it. The story is straightforward and compelling; the screenplay (final credit is given to author Peter Benchley and screenwriter / actor Carl Gottlieb, who plays newspaperman Meadows) trims the melodramatic fat from the Benchley novel and goes right for the thrills, which come frequently.
The story deals with a resort island community, named Amity, that finds its livelihood - and its citizens & visitors - threatened by a rogue great white shark, which just refuses to go away and insists on staying where the eating is good. Eventually, an expedition is launched to find and destroy the beast.
Roy Scheider is perfect as the Everyman hero, police chief Martin Brody, who tries to do the right thing and protect the people even when local authorities, mainly represented by stupidly stubborn mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), stress to him the importance of a financially successful summer season. Richard Dreyfuss is fun as the rich kid shark expert who tries to educate Vaughn and others on the facts of the great white. And Robert Shaw, in a scenery chewing performance, is brilliant as salty fisherman Quint, who has a generous array of the most quotable lines, including a speech regarding the men of the USS Indianapolis. Fine support is provided by Hamilton, Lorraine Gary as the loving and supportive wife, and Jeffrey Kramer as the deputy.
On location shooting in Martha's Vineyard supplies plenty of wonderful flavour, and who can ever forget *that* music by John Williams, the composer / conductor who's given us some of the best, most instantly recognizable movie themes of all time?
The stories of the making of the movie are now the stuff of legend, with the inability to get mechanical shark "Bruce" to function properly the ultimate happy accident, forcing the filmmakers to use subjective camera work and a very simple cue from Williams to indicate the sharks' presence. Among the iconic sequences are those of the first victim (Susan Backlinie) meeting her doom, the misguided attempt by two fishermen to catch the shark, Brody and Hoopers' night time search for the fish and an unpleasant surprise that drops into frame, the entire second half which is seagoing adventure at its finest, and the aforementioned USS Indianapolis speech.
An enduring part of the popular culture if ever there was one, "Jaws" is one of those movie milestones that any fan of the cinema ought to see at least once. It was extremely influential in its time, spawning a bunch of similar "nature strikes back" thrillers, and to this day it would be hard to swim in the ocean or just *think* of the ocean and not have "Jaws" on the brain.
10 out of 10.