Director: Dustin Ferguson
Year: 2021
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Jaws of Los Angeles; Los Angeles Shark Attack
Genre: Sharks
Plot:
Following a series of gruesome accidents, the sheriff of a small beach town comes to find the attacks here have been caused by a vicious strain of mutated sharks attacking anything in the waters and sets out with the determined son of a local land-owner trying to open a new resort to stop the bloodthirsty creatures.
Review:
This was a really underwhelming goofy genre effort. One of the few good elements present here is the first half which sets up the inner goings-on while featuring the shark attacking the outskirts of their lives. The idea of this one doing a deep dive into the lives of the residents here, from the land-owners’ son trying to keep his personal life together as his ex-girlfriend keeps trying to interfere in his new romance, a developer trying to get a project off the ground, and a detective looking to investigate the origin of the shark attacks with the help of a marine biologist to try to track it down based on the creatures’ habits serve this one merely to give an idea of what’s going on with the residents throughout here.
As well, there’s also some facets to like here once this moves past the setup into the generally goofy and enjoyable nature of the shark attacks. These are initially kept to brief moments of the unseen shark ambushing victims where they’re out in the water like the diver attack or the ambush on the models’ photoshoot. That it pulls off the scene of it attacking a hunters’ boat without showing the creature itself is quite a feat as the action features the shark taking out the hunters is a fun enough concept, and the crazy finale features some fun scenes of their plan to stop the creatures that are quite enjoyable. Along with the generally over-the-top revelation that comes about in the closing minutes, this manages to get quite a lot to like about it.
This one does have some troublesome aspects. The main drawback on display here is the general lack of shark action throughout the film. With the shark itself being shown as a brief glimpse in one sequence until the finale and relying on stock footage until that point, the film can very easily be forgiven for not being a shark film with the focus on the personal issues going on instead. Carrying out endless scenes of padding as characters walk around the city trying to figure out how to stop the creatures is also a major factor here as these scenes go on forever is also a part of the hold-up to keeping the film from letting loose on the shark action as it should. As well, there’s also the film’s tendency to become obvious about its low-budget origins, not just with the aforementioned padding and lack of shark action but the whole affairs come of decidedly like this was done quickly and illegally which is all to be expected here.
Overview: */5
Despite featuring some goofy action at times, it’s so few and infrequent here based on the cheap setup and focus on areas away from being a shark movie that hold this one back. Really only go for this one if you’re a shark movie completist or a fan of the creative crew here while most others will want to stick to other entries in the genre in order to get their killer shark fix.
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