Jaws (1975)

Jaws (1975)

starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss

directed by Steven Spielberg

124 minutes

A great white shark kills a swimmer off the coast of Amity. Sheriff Brody (Roy Scheider) wants to shut down the beaches but the mayor won't let him. The town depends on beachgoers for its economic livelihood and July is just around the corner.

Another swimmer is killed. This time it is a young boy. The mother of the dead boy posts a reward for the capture of the shark. Lots of men in boats go out to find the shark. One of the boats comes back with a dead tiger shark. Almost everyone rejoices but Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), a marine biologist, quickly determines that dead shark isn't big enough to be the killer shark.

The beaches open on the Fourth of July. Everyone is celebrating the holiday when the killer shark strikes again, claiming another victim. The mayor finally relents and gives the sheriff the authority to hire Quint (Robert Shae), a professional shark hunter.

Quint, Brody, and Hooper head out to sea in the Orca, Quint's boat, to hunt the killer shark. Quint is the expert but the shark proves to be much more than he can handle and almost too much for the three of them to handle.

Thoughts

I saw Jaws at least once before, probably during the 1990s, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see it in a movie theatre. It was worth it. Some of those scenes just aren't the same on the small screen. There was a brief introduction by Steven Spielberg. It was nice but it didn't add very much to the experience.

The first half of this movie takes place on the island. The second half takes place at sea, aboard the Orca.

The Orca took a lot longer to sink than I thought it would, after it first started to take on water.

I don't know what Hooper was thinking when he got in that cage. He was just as bonkers as Quint. It was like he felt like he had to make use of the gear he brought with him.

I really enjoyed seeing this movie again. It's a very suspenseful watch, I had forgotten how good a job they did building up the tension at many points in the movie.