Dollar Tree Cinema: Shark Attack

“Shark Attack” (1999)
Starring Casper Van Dien, Ernie Hudson, Jenny McShane, Tony Caprari
Directed by Bob Misiorowski
Written by Scott Devine and William Hooke
Rated R for some violence and language

Note: When I posted this, I thought Shark Week was about to start. But it turns out my Googling was lazy and it doesn't kick off until July 20. My bad.

Not only are we on the precipice of Shark Week, but this year also marks the 50^th anniversary of the greatest shark movie of them all, not to mention the original summer blockbuster: “Jaws.” So naturally, I'm here to discuss... “Shark Attack.”

Come on, everybody's writing and talking about “Jaws.” What am I going to add to that? But who else is kicking off a trilogy that began with this movie that premiered on HBO in 1999, spawned a couple of sequels and resurfaced in multiple DVD and Blu ray collections available not that long ago at a Dollar Tree near you?

This is actually the second entry from one of those collections after my October post on “Sharkman,” which was definitely a movie about a hybrid shark and man. While that one did have cast members I'd heard of, “Shark Attack” boasts “Starship Troopers” and... was it “Omega Code?” … star Casper Van Dien AND Ernie Hudson, who has played many more roles than Winston in “Ghostbusters” but who I primarily think of as Winston in “Ghostbusters.” And that's not a bad thing. Winston's a nice, hard-working, resourceful guy, who is down to Earth but also willing to believe in the supernatural in order to earn a paycheck for said hard work. It's much better than being unable to separate Matthew Lillard from Stu in “Scream” until he played Shaggy.

But Winston – sorry, Hudson, is not the main character in “Shark Attack.” That's Van Dien's Steven McKray, a rebellious marine biologist* who is brilliant but not overly interested in finishing his dissertation and getting that doctorate. He finds a way to put it off again when his friend and classmate Marc Desantis sends him a message about a string of unusual shark attacks in Africa.

“I'm still over here in Africa” is a thing he says, as if Africa isn't a rather large continent with a number of distinct countries. We do get the setting named as Port Amanzi, but that's about it until the credits roll, assuring us that the film was shot in “Port Alfred, South Africa, where no real shark attacks have occurred.” So I'm going to credit the filmmakers as not wanting to tank someone's tourism industry rather than not willing to find out some basic information about African geography.

McKray gets all the way to Port Amanzi before another former classmate, Dr. Miles Craven (Bentley Mitchum), informs him Marc is dead. McKray would have known this if he'd watched the opening scene, in which two law enforcement types killed Marc by cutting his arm and dumping him in shark-infested waters. McKray and Marc's grieving sister Corine (McShane), who also studied marine biology, are suspicious since the only bit of Marc that was found, his hand, was wearing a regular watch instead of his dive watch.

Not exactly helping them investigate are Hudson, playing Lawrence Rhodes, a wealthy investor buying up the land as businesses close down due to the shark's negative effects on fishing and tourism; Craven, who runs a marine research center and kind of looks like a taller Kevin Smith; and Mani (Caprari), a fisherman of some ethnicity I can't quite identify who is making ends meet by driving a taxi and being a comic relief action sidekick.

I'll try to go easy on the spoilers here, although there isn't much to surprise you. The sharks aren't just naturally getting more aggressive; some folks appear to be hiding things; and McKray and Corine might just have some unresolved chemistry. Things start going in pretty much the directions you'd expect, with a couple of notable exceptions.

For one, the sharks' body count is not as high as you might imagine, suggesting that maybe the filmmakers were going for something other than gore. And although Corine's penchant for doing science in a tiny orange bikini is at times comically distracting, there's not an excess of skin or suggestive content. Even the profanity, while unnecessary, isn't pervasive.

Scenes in which the cast or their stunt doubles actually appear to interact with sharks are few and far between, with questionable editing attempting to create most of the suspense. Don't get me wrong; I don't want national treasure Ernie Hudson in close proximity to sharks for the sake of a direct-to-pay-cable movie, or even a blockbuster. I'm just saying it could have been done better. Still, Hudson, among others, is not phoning in his performance.

There's a familiar subplot about sharks and cancer research, a rather intense shark attack scene and an emotional subplot about a seriously ill child that indicate some thought and effort was put into this. There are also an abundance of shark autopsies? No new ground is tread, but I can't dismiss it as simply a forgettable, shark-centric cash grab. A nearly forgettable, so-so, shark-centric movie made for financial rather than artistic motivation? Sure.

Nobody will be writing think pieces about “Shark Attack” and its place in cinematic history in 2049.** It's not very good. But it's also not as bad as you might expect for a generically titled movie comprising 1/4 to 1/8 of $1.25 movie collections either.

Given my fascination with shark movies and sequels, I'll probably watch “Shark Attack II” (which seems unnecessary but not out of the question once you realize why the sharks are doing what they're doing) before long, maybe for another Halloween entry. Or maybe I'll just skip to "Toxic Shark."

* - Is there any other kind?

** - Nor, to be fair, about this blog.