L'année du requin

"The Year of the Shark" is a drama that makes you smile, a comedy that does not make you laugh, a toothless shark film that makes Bruno Mattéi's "Cruel Jaws" reevaluate, and which it is unworthy to compare to the yet uneven series of "Jaws". Incredible but true: "Jaws 3D" and "Jaws 4: The Revenge" are good films compared to "'The Year of the Shark'"! Admittedly, French "genre" cinema has not always shone with its dazzling successes, its indisputable masterpieces, but in the case of "The Year of the Shark" we can speak of a complete failure as the film fails in all registers and bores its viewer, because of the lack of a decent screenplay, direction and rhythm.

Yes, the very famous bigger boat sentence/quote is in this. No pun intended - even if you did not read about it, you can tell that the movie is spoofing (a love letter?) to Jaws. It is not a shot for shot copy mind you, but there are enough visual and quote clues to make it as obvious as possible.

It is a fun little movie, but it may not be the best movie ever. And not your cup of tea - but that is for you to decide. It is nice to see an "older" female lead character. Not every joke does hit (contrary to the shooting skills of the main character), but it is nice enough I reckon ... or maybe I am just too generous once again.

Can you make a movie about a seaside resort terrorized - or at least thrown off kilter - by a killer shark and not take *Jaws* into account? That's the question this movie posed for me. It does not, in any way that I caught, make reference to, much less offer a parody of, the famous horror film. That for me was a problem because it then becomes just another movie on the same subject, with radically reduced resources. The script offers no interesting new angles. So why bother?

If you're going to tackle the same subject as a very well-known film, you can either parody the predecessor or try to outdo it. This film did neither. So what was the point?

I spent one month to finish this film, and i slept like 5 time during it played.

There's nothing funny nothing to tell in this movie. At the beggining i thought it might be fun, maybe the way they will do, or the story would go to the place i never think about.

It was plain, no flavor nothing at all, if it's a plain toast you still have a slightly sweetness taste in it, but not this film. All I saw was a paranoid officer versus the world.

What a waste of all actors/actress in this film, they are good but put in the wrong place, wrong story. And this is the first time I saw a french movie pas drôle pas de profondeur et aussi nul, je suis déçue.

First I would like to get things straight. This is certainly not a comedy, and I really don't understand the rating of this film!

A film with a shark probably will have the misfortune to be compared with Jaws. Of course there are similarities, it's about a killer shark. There was a bit of comedy in Jaws, but that certainly didn't make it a comedy. The film is describing the life in a small French city with a very tourist seeking beach. We're in the city of La Pointe, not much happening, the city living off tourists.

Second in command at the police department Maja Bordenave (Marina Fois) is being told by German tourists that they have seen a shark. At the same time a man on a surfboard is missing.

The beach is closed as a leg is found with marks of shark teeths.

Maja is three days from retiring, 49 years old, starting young, but she wants to fight the shark. She is getting a week to solve the problem. With help from her colleagues Blaise (Jean-Pascal Zadi) and Eugenie (Christine Gautier) they hunt the shark down and shoot it with a tranquilliser, capturing it.

But that's not enough, soon the shark is hunting in La Pointe again. Maja is called an assassin, on the ground of more shark victims. She retires from her job.

Trying to relax with husband Thierry (probably the hardest working actor in France, Kad Merad) she really wants to end the horror and kill the shark. Nearly all in La Pointe don't want her help.

Well, that's except her former colleagues Blaise and Eugenie. The three sails out for the final fight with the shark... I think this is much better than what has been written on this site. This is a very good movie, and really this is a very fine acting all around, especially Marina Fois.