|
|
Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 9, No. 20 |
|
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK IN THE WATER, HERE COMES... "SHARK SWARM"  OH, IF ONLY DARRYL HANNAH and JOHN SCHNEIDER KNEW WHAT WAS RIGHT BEHIND THEM...!!!!!!
|
If just one scares you,
try a shark convention!
of TheColumnists.com
If Armand Assante is in a movie, you just know you're in for a baaaaad time! He's one of those creepy actors who just has MAFIOSO written all over him. He mumbles, he slithers, he looks like he doesn't wash his hands after going potty. He's sinister with a capital "S."
So, when I saw his name in the cast of The Hallmark Channel's new thriller, "Shark Swarm," I didn't expect he'd be out there trying to harpoon sharks and save a seaside town's innocent swimmers and waders. He's the kind of guy who throws bloody buckets of chum in the water and cackles when red froth comes bubbling to the surface as the feeding frenzy begins.
And, yes, I was dead right: Assante plays a developer of seaside condominiums in "Shark Swarm." Hey, that's bad enough. Who needs condo towers polluting the horizon? But this guy is way worse than any of the worst developers I've come across in my days as a defender of coastal scenery.
You see, some of the folks don't want to sell their land to Assante. They're fisher-folks who love to pull salmon and other delicious finned treats out of the water for a living. They resist bribes, threats and all that usual developer stuff, so he comes up with a unique plan: Mess up the bay so no fish can live there, then they'll have to sell their land for condos or starve to death!
 |
of his best decadent bad guy looks as he enjoys some time by the seashore, playing a developer who pollutes the open sea. |
So he buys up this derelict old power plant and starts pumping its leftover toxins into the water off the coast of a northern California community known as Full Moon Bay. (Any resemblance to a real place called Half Moon Bay is coincidental. If Hallmark is going to moon you, they're not going to do it halfway!)
But it turns out the toxins have some sort of oddball effect: They get inside the bellies of sharks and make them go crazy. They're like zombies in a George Romero movie, only with fins. They want to eat anything and everything before it's too late.
Not a pleasant prospect for the citizens of Full Moon Bay, like those two drunken fishermen who think they've hooked something neat and all of a sudden get pulled into the waters where the Fraternal Order of Great White Sharks is having its national convention and all-you-can-eat festival. Chomp, chomp. Red froth.
And you have to feel sorry for the nice little girl who's afraid of the water. Everybody keeps trying to get her out beyond the surf line in her little rubber raft, telling her, "There's nothing to be afraid of, dearie!" Right. She knows better. She looks down through the little plastic window in the bottom of her raft and sees her swimming instructor become the blue plate special at a shark smorgasbord.
And you just know the beautiful young coed who's smitten by the long-haired blond surfer dude is in for trouble. He wants her to try riding the waves while we watch the sharks swarming in her direction. But, wait a minute, she can't be eaten. She's too cute and she plays the hero's daughter. No way, Jose.
Who's the hero? Well, Roy Scheider is gone and all the rest of the "Jaws" veterans are either too old or too high-priced to be in "Shark Swarm," so that brings us down to the low rent district and the durable John Schneider, which rhymes with Scheider. Don't wrinkle your brow. You remember him, don't you? He was one of the original "Dukes of Hazzard." Now, now--stop yelling, "Throw him to the sharks!" He's a nice guy. I once spent a whole day on a movie location with him during a rainstorm on the Arizona desert and, although I was all wet, I decided I'd forgive him his "Dukes" past.
Well, Schneider plays one of those fishermen who won't sell out to Armand Assante. He smells something fishier than usual about that condo deal and he doesn't like the thuggy characters that hang out with Assante, especially that big lug who keeps hitting on his wife, who's played by Darryl Hannah.
Ms. Hannah has excellent credentials for making movies about shark swarms. Don't forget she once played a mermaid in "Splash" and looks natural when waterlogged. She also played a 50-foot tall woman once upon a time and has never quite regained her girlish figure since then. They now dress her in sort of maternity-style outfits that disguise the fact she's no longer quite as trim as she used to be. But look who's talking. I'm probably beyond the point where a maternity frock would help.
Together, Schneider and Hannah decide to get to the bottom of this shark business. They enlist the aid of several minor characters, including a local college professor who's an expert on sharks. He's played by F. Murray Abraham from "Amadeus," the least known winner of the Best Actor Oscar in movie history. He gives it the old college try, even though the science level of this movie is not particularly challenging.
"Shark Swarm" is three hours long. That's a long time to stretch your credulity. You begin to wonder about some things by the end of the second hour, like why doesn't anybody notice all these missing shark victims in time to get a little word-of-mouth rumor going around that this might not be the season for going in the water.
BUT I'll have to admit I'm a sucker for all shark movies. This one snaps along pretty well and isn't often dull. Schneider kisses Hannah a lot, which may have been a fringe benefit of being in "Shark Swarm." Armand Assante has a colorful exit scene that many viewers will enjoy taping and re-running over and over. None of the really pretty girls get bitten, at least not by any sharks.
Sure, it's a time waster, but you could do worse on a Saturday night, especially if you're living in an assisted care home and the nurses are real mean-spirited.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The photos are courtesy of The Hallmark Channel. This column first posted May 19, 2008.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|