Jaws

It has been 40 years since Jaws first hit the cinemas and to this day, Spielberg’s classic thriller is the benchmark for what a successful summer blockbuster should be.

"You yell, "Shark!"...We've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July"

Brief Plot Overview

Roy Scheider stars as Martin Brody, a modest police chief of a resort island called Amity on the east coast of the USA that starts to suffer frequent and fatal shark attacks. Coming into repeated dispute with the island’s mayor (played by Murray Hamilton) over closing the beaches, Brody and oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) finally convince the mayor to take action after a man is killed on the Fourth of July weekend in full view of a mass of tourists. The decision is made to hire (Robert Shaw’s) Quint, a local shark hunter. The final act consists of Brody, Hooper and Quint facing off against the Great White in the open water.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat"

From left to right: Shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw), police chief Brody (Roy Scheider) and oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss)

Verdict:

The film’s thrills and scares don’t come from the brief, gruesome shark attacks themselves but from what you don’t see. Playing on the fear of the unknown, the killer shark is not properly revealed until almost two thirds of the way through the movie and even after that its screen time is limited. The absence of the shark on screen was not the original idea and came about after trouble getting the mechanical shark to work properly and the model used was more convincing the less you looked at it. This technical difficulty changed the mood of the film completely and surprisingly elevates the film from a standard monster movie to an intelligent suspense thriller. Yet the standout aspect of this movie that really makes it an enduring classic is the relationship between the three leads which mostly develops in the final act of the movie. All three performances are solid but Robert Shaw’s portrayal of Quint is superb and encapsulates his tough, gritty demeanour perfectly, especially during the famous Indianapolis speech which he partly wrote. Furthermore, the rivalry between “working-class hero” Quint and “college boy” Hooper make for some entertaining scenes. The only real criticism of the film comes from the underdevelopment of certain minor characters such as Brody’s wife. Accompanied by an iconic John Williams score that heightens the suspense and elevates the storytelling, so much so that the music becomes a character in and of itself, “Jaws” broke box office records, laid the foundation for Spielberg’s hugely successful career and ultimately transformed the way Hollywood viewed the summer season.