Welcome to this week’s edition of the Nerd Review!  Every week the Nerds give you their take on a different movie from the Nerdosphere.  This week, Dave and Patrick celebrate Shark Week by reviewing Steven Spielberg’s iconic thriller Jaws!

The Flick:  Jaws (1975)

What’s it About:  A small New England island town is terrorized by a great white shark attacking its tranquil beaches.  It’s up to the community’s sheriff, a young shark researched and a grizzled shark hunter to find the great white and kill it.

Metacritic Score: 87

The Nerds’ Take on Jaws:

Dave: With Shark Week upon us it is time to take a look at the movie that started a global fascination with sharks. Jaws may be more than 45 years old but it remains one of the best horror films of all-time and make no mistake….Jaws is a horror movie.

I cannot think of many people who have not seen this classic so let’s not spend a lot of time on the plot. A giant great white shark is feeding in the waters off of Amity Island. This shark however seems to prefer humans as its primary food source and this creates the central conflict of the movie: The shark trying to eat people and people trying to catch and kill the shark. Wedged in the middle of all this is the fact that Amity is a summer town and it makes all the money that the locals who reside there year-round need to survive during the summer months. The mayor of Amity, Larry Vaughn, knows this but also knows there is a killer shark in the waters. He opts to keep the beaches open despite the warnings of Chief Martin Brodie and oceanographer Matt Hooper. Predictably, this leads to disaster and death. The debacle forces Larry to agree to hire Quint, a professional shark hunter, to track down and kill the shark. This leads to the climactic showdown between Jaws, Brodie, Hooper, and Quint. Quint gets eaten, Jaws gets killed, while Brodie & Hooper end up paddling back to shore on the remnants of the boat.

Now, sharks have been on this planet, largely unevolved, since prehistoric times. But it was not until Jaws came out in 1975 that sharks penetrated our cultural consciousness. What makes Jaws so good, and so terrifying, is that unlike 95% of horror movies, this is one that could actually happen. Not only could it happen, but, to a lesser extent, it has happened. There are hundreds of shark attacks every year. But up until 1975, these attacks largely flew under the radar. All that changed when Jaws hit theaters. No other movie has terrified a generation of people like Jaws. I do not know of one person who wades into the ocean and somewhere in the back of their mind does not at least wonder if a predatory denizen of the deep is lurking nearby. No other movie before it or since had the effect that Jaws did on something so simple as going to the beach.

But it was not just fear of sharks that Jaws created. Quite the opposite. It created a unique fascination with these animals. People genuinely wanted to understand them more. Cinematically, this led to numerous sequels, along with a plethora of other shark-based movies, most of them ranging from bad to awful (Sharknado I am looking at you). But, as mentioned at the outset, the movie led to a phenomenon known as Shark Week. Shark Week, incredibly enough, has been going for 33 years now and it gets bigger and better every year. Without Jaws, it is highly unlikely that Shark Week would even be a thing.

The cultural impact notwithstanding, let’s return to the actual movie. This was the movie that put Steven Spielberg on the map and it took a herculean effort to get it done. By modern standards, the special effects won’t blow you away. Still, the most powerful effect that they really needed was a fake shark fin protruding out of the water. That one image was all it really took to put this movie on a different level. Once the animatronic shark showed up, terror had a new face and it was one lined with many rows of teeth. To be sure, the predatory habit of the shark in Jaws, and its penchant for human flesh, flies in the face of what we now know about sharks. But in 1975, it was unlike anything that had ever been seen. There are truly horrific moments in this movie, but it is what you don’t see in graphic detail that is even better, especially the attack that opens the movie. This is repeated a few times in the movie and it truly captures the reality of a shark attack, making it even more gut-wrenching. Most real-life shark attack victims never see it coming, just like in the movie.

As far as the cast is concerned, Roy Scheider as Chief Brodie, Richard Dreyfus as Hooper, and Robert Shaw as Quint carry this movie and carry it well. This is especially true during the latter 1/3 of the movie when it is just the three men chasing down the shark and then facing their own mortality as the hunters soon become the hunted. Quint’s story of the fate of the men of the USS Indianapolis during the later days of World War II is one of the most powerful scenes in movie history…and it is nothing more than Shaw’s ability to tell the story with a mix of awe, heartbreak, and terror that puts it in a different category altogether. The supporting characters and cast are all fine, but it is the three men who go through a harrowing ordeal at the end that really make the difference.

Jaws has been one of my favorites since I was 7 years old. Perhaps watching it when I was that young explains a lot about what is wrong with me. Be that as it may, it is a classic on multiple levels and, arguably, one of the most important and influential movies ever from the standpoint of bringing wonder, fascination, fear, curiosity, and respect to one of the oldest species of creatures on the Earth. In writing this, I have racked my brain to come up with another movie like Jaws and the only thing that comes to mind is how another Spielberg film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, created a similar fascination with UFOs and extraterrestrials. But even that comparison is not on the same level as Jaws. It is a movie like no other for a variety of reasons and it is an all-time classic.

Dave’s Rating: 5.0/5.0

Patrick:  I’m going to spoil my rating of Jaws outright. This is a five out of five thriller and filmmaking at its finest for the time.  In 1975, Steven Spielberg made audiences afraid of swimming in the ocean with his classic horror/thriller.  Jaws is not one of my favorite films.  But I cannot not deny the artistry of Spielberg here and his creation of a taught, pulse pounding thriller of movie.  From the score to the special effects to the acting, it is all here.  What’s even more impressive to me is the fact that Spielberg basically made two distinct movies in one cinematic experience, but more on that in a bit.

As with most classic films, many of you are likely familiar with the plot.  For those who aren’t, I’ll give you the cliff notes.  The small New England Island community of Amity relies on summer tourism to its beaches to thrive.  When a young woman’s remains are found on the local beach.  Sheriff Martin Brody is initially told by the medical examiner that the woman was the victim of a shark attack.  When Brody acts to close the beaches, he is stopped by the local mayor.  After subsequent attacks, Brody is granted permission to hunt the shark and kill it with the help of a grizzled shark hunter Quint and young shark researcher Hooper.

So there’s the basic plot.  As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, what I find really interesting with Jaws is that there are two stories built into one complete film.  The first half of the film focuses on the community of Amity and Brody’s attempt to convince the community leaders, namely Mayor Vaughn, who stubbornly refuses to close the beach at any turn.  It is only when his son is put in danger and the bodies pile up that he relents.  Up to that point, Spielberg paints a very accurate portrayal of small town America.  It’s a community that relies on the summer tourism economy to survive.  When Mayor Vaughn convinces the community beaches are safe, they openly attempt to market the shark to help their economy.  As someone who grew up in a small community reliant on agriculture to fuel its economy, I actually understood where the Mayor was coming from, even if he was a complete moron.

Where the film really hits its stride though is in the second half to two-thirds of the movie when Brody, Quint and Hooper are hunting the shark aboard Quint’s ship the Orca.  Spielberg takes three men with like goals, but conflicting personalities and dedicates a significant amount of screen time building a sense of camaraderie between the three as they hunt this ruthless feeding machine.  The best of these moments comes from an extended scene wherein Quint and Hooper are comparing scars over a bottle of brandy.  All three men are in a uniquely desperate situation and would never connect outside of this specific scenario.  It really speaks to the talents of the actors involved, Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw’s talents along with Spielberg’s directing that they create such a convincing bond.

Spielberg does a phenomenal job creating a sense of dread throughout the film as well.  From the famous opening shark attack in a dark open ocean right up to the release of tension during the shark’s final attack on the Orca.  Spielberg keeps the audience on edge with head fakes, a clever use of sound, and an iconic score written by the great John Williams.  All of it must have created an atmosphere in the theater that kept audiences on the edge of their seat.  The film still holds up today on tension alone.  What hasn’t aged well?  The shark.  By today’s standards, the shark looks slow and cumbersome.  Famously, or infamously, the mechanical shark broke down frequently and further limited what Spielberg could do in production.  Fortunately, Spielberg was smart enough to really keep the creature hidden from the audience until the latter parts of the movie.  Whether intentionally or out of necessity, limiting the shark’s appearances in the film only heightens the moment when he finally reveals himself.

I’ve already hinted in a previous paragraph, but the cast really drives this film.  It all begins and ends with Roy Scheider as Sheriff Brody.  Scheider deftly maneuvers between playing the frustrated voice of reason among the town leaders to a man burdened by the guilt of not standing his ground and closing the beaches.  When a small boy dies, Scheider conveys a sense of guilt that the audience can appreciate even though they know it wasn’t his fault.  Dreyfuss is great as the wealthy shark enthusiast Hooper who embraces being at odds with Robert Shaw’s Quint.  Many point to Quint’s performance as the movie stealing performance of Jaws and it’s hard to argue the point.  Shaw plays Quint’s obsession with hunting the shark to a level akin to Moby Dick’s Ahab.  He’s coarse, angry, and has the experience that flies in the face of Hooper’s research.  The three play their roles extraordinarily well.

Other cast members of note are Murray Hamilton as Mayor Vaughn.  He plays the mayor as a boastful, delusional mayor who cares more about maintaining the illusion that all is well for the sake of an economy rather than looking out for the safety of his citizens.  By the time the audience says goodbye to Mayor Vaughn, he is a shell of a man broken by his decisions.  Hamilton conveys this deftly to the point that I almost feel bad for the guy.  Finally, we have an understated but strong performance by Lorraine Gary as Ellen Brody.  Gary’s Brody is more than a supportive partner to Scheider.  Ellen is not afraid to stand up to her husband and tell him when he is wrong, yet she will support him publicly even when she disagrees with him.  Ellen is the anchor who holds the family together while her husband does his part to save the town.  Gary makes Ellen jump off of the screen even in her limited role.

I am not a big fan of the Jaws franchise.  It’s not a film I look to when I want to watch a good old fashioned thriller.  However, no one can deny that Steven Spielberg and Peter Benchley created a masterpiece.  From the hair-raising tension of the first half of the film to the explosive payoff at the conclusion, Jaws never lets the audience take a break.  Throw in an iconic score by John Williams and you have a film that will endure long after we all feel safe enough to get back in the water.

Patrick’s Rating: 5.0/5.0

Overall Nerds’ Rating for Jaws (1975): 5.0/5.0