Considering this film's pedigree, it wasn't surprising that it wasn't very good. Despite having the very famous and economical Sam Fuller directing the film, he and the producers had a falling out and they finished and edited it without him. Naturally, Fuller was irritated with having his name on the film--and it's clearly not among his best work. But, what from this movie IS his and what isn't? The film is about a rich jerk (Barry Sullivan) who wants to excavate a treasure using scuba equipment. The problem is, that it's in a shark-infested area and it's VERY risky. So, he gets the assistance of the very macho gun-runner (Burt Reynolds) by not telling him the full extent of the danger. Despite being an undersea film, the scuba shots really aren't very good and the film is muddy and cheap looking. While the three male leads (Burt Reyholds, Sullivan and Arthur Kenedy) are decent, none of the three have much personality--at least not enough to make the plot more interesting. All in all, a rather listless film that had me wondering repeatedly 'is it over yet?!'. Not worth your time unless you are a Sam Fuller completist--even then, you may want to skip this one.

Based on a novel (which I've read) by Victor Canning. Mexico stands in for a squalid town in the Sudan where a group of seedy characters are stranded. Barry Sullivan is the grumpy honcho with the shady moves. A fortune in submerged gold in a shipwreck in shark-infested waters is the prize. Burt Reynolds, channeling the Wages of Fear, has reason to sweat: he has to carry a long and boring sub-plot concerning his "relationship" with a scroungy little street kid until the main plot kicks in. Arthur Kennedy(I think he was supposed to be an Arab. He's wearing a fez, anyway) shamelessly hams it up as the town drunk.Sure, Burt Reynolds is trapped in the dead-end of the Sudan, yet shirtless in some tight white pants he comes across as cocky as his chest is hairy.Sam Fuller's hard-boiled sensibilities surface in the existential dialog: "Just getting up in the morning is a risk." The main trouble with the film, aside from the horrendous post-production hack-job performed upon it by the clueless producers, is the dull and draggy pace. With a few judicious trims and without the wholesale chop chop this could be a much better film. Also the old source print is so dark at times it is impossible to tell what is happening. As it stands it is a curiosity, worth watching at least once, but nothing more.

It being said that Shark is far from being what co-writer/director Samuel Fuller envisioned is right on the money. Or rather, lacking money, because this film seems to have been made with change that fell from the pockets of the producers. It's another film that looks and feels like it was made with the grit and gusto of a man with a need to tell a story, but unfortunately it's quite compromised. On the DVD- not too unfitting released by Troma- the special features go to lengths to explain what became of the film once it was completed, and taken out of Fuller's hands to even include (at the START of the film) a real lethal shark attack. That the film, ironically, is not the total disaster that Fuller thought it was once he saw what the producers did, is a credit to him and first-time movie star Burt Reynolds.Now, as long as you're not a stickler for little things like, say, continuity (check out that beard, or how it withers scene to scene, for example), the film isn't a total waste. For one thing it still carries the memorably tough wit of some of Fuller's noir films of the 50s, and he still makes his mark on the film in spurts, as one can tell through its fractured, ultra low-budget qualities (i.e. made in Mexico with a shamble for Sudanese sets, if that's what they are). He also gets a little cool gusto out of Reynolds, who would later bloom, so to speak, as a major star in his own right. Here, however, he's still finding his feet some of the time, so it goes without saying that it's more machismo and presence than real 'acting' up on screen. He plays Caine, a mercenary gun seller with a predilection for wacky danger (i.e. tossing dynamite out of his car to thwart those on his tail at the start). He gets recruited by a tempting female who offers him a chance to dig up gold in a sunken ship...all in shark infested waters! When these scenes do finally come up after a lot of plot line subterfuge, it's hit or miss.Then again, this is long before Jaws, so if the temptation to hear a really rousing score over the underwater scenes does strike you, it speaks to not just that film's strengths but how Shark! doesn't quite realize all of its potential. It wouldn't be 100% fair to blame just the producers for the bits of fiasco, because even through what is quite good that Fuller pulls off on screen (I liked the small chase in the village with the boy and the watch, and a few of the more blatantly exciting moments with Reynolds in his underwater garb), he doesn't have that much of a really terrific story to work with to start with. Maybe it's a combination of factors, but that it's Sam Fuller's weakest movie I've seen of his films is both a credit to what he could do with what could possibly have been a real Z-grade stinker and a tome to what he couldn't do with un-supportive, conniving producers. Probably worth a good, dumb time for drinking buddies, however.

A friend of mine gave me this as a joke when he moved from the midwest and I have to tell you it is the worst film in the history of film-making. Note Burt's beard in the chase scene early on in the desert. Also, check out the bazaar chase scene when the kid steals his watch. Did you really need to crash into that table?Anyway, if you love bad movies then this one is for you. That's how we came across it actually. We used to have a bad movie night once a week. This won hands down. As a matter of fact, we stopped doing it after this one. Nothing could ever compare.Sometimes I intentionally watch a bad film or two to purge my system in preparation for a good one. Well, this is like the Ex-Lax of films for this type of activity.