Shark in Venice

One of the whispering Baldwins travels to Venice to battle with a shark and a man with a beard.

Yet another cheap sharksploitation entry with the new angle of shark attacks in an urban environment. Hence, Venice. Although to be perfectly honest they hardly make the most of this potentially interesting, and agreeably moronic, set-up as the shark hardly attacks anyone other than various divers. And that sort of thing could happen in any shark movie let's be frank. Anyway the odd occasions that the shark does decide to attack tourists and drunken people on the surface prove to be the film's highlights, and these are few and far between.

Shark in Venice is effectively an action-thriller that pits good guy Baldwin against the machine-gun toting Mafioso bad guys. There's lots of shoot-outs and running about. The damn shark almost becomes incidental. Not exactly what we want. A much more accurate title for this film would have been Baldwin In Venice.

A B-Movie that makes a common mistake. It sidelines the perfectly ridiculous/stupid idea of Sharks in Venice, for a plot involving hidden treasure and the mafia. I didn't come here for no stale performances from humans, I wanted stock footage mixed with obvious CGI. I did get quite a bit of this, but not enough. As someone that appreciates the tacky genre, at least give me what you promise. Especially when the title is that clear. If not, then be more creative, such as "Mysteries of Venice", as this can relate to the treasure and the shark. Baldwin is a perfectly fine actor that takes, even this role, pretty seriously. There are unintentional laughs, bad accents and even epic medieval battles. It's got a lot, but not enough.

Perhaps it was the regurgitation of the same shots over and over again in the short action sequences, perhaps it was the poor acting from all of the cast, perhaps it was the terrible script, or perhaps it was the dire camera work from start to finish which conspired to make this film one of the worst ever made.

It is unsurprising, then, that this film released straight to disc, as it may have caused riots at the premiere.

If you fancy a very good laugh, or want to see what happens when you watch too many films and try to copy all of them, then watch this film. If you want to see a film with sharks in, watch Jaws.

I gave it five out of ten because Shark in Venice was even worse than i thought it could possibly be and my expectations were low. The acting is non existent and not in that good way where the actors seem like they are the characters and not acting. The plot as it is, meanders along tried and tested paths leaving you wondering what exactly the number of missing persons listed in Venice each year is for them to fail to notice the disappearance of so many people. It is reminiscent of a great episode of Only Fools and Horses where Del Boy tries to sell a film script to Rodney, which is supposed to be a whodunit, involving a killer Rhino living in secret, smack bang in the middle the city of London, hiding in an abandoned garage in the back streets and coming out every night to trample, gore and even possibly eat the unsuspecting residents of Old London Town.

Now lets face it, if you're serious enough about watching this movie to be even reading this comment then you're probably going to do it anyway because you're bored and like me you have a taste for B movies which involve large creatures eating people. i promise you if this film had been awful i would have given it 10 out of 10 for doing exactly what it said on the label, but this is the kind of bad which makes Anaconda look like an Oscar winner. Treat with care and enjoy whatever you can. But you were warned

SHARK IN VENICE sounds like your bog standard SyFy/Asylum monster flick, but it's not. It's actually a low budget, low rent gangster thriller in which the sharks are an added afterthought. Stephen Baldwin stars in a conspiracy plot line involving the search for a hidden treasure by the Italian Mafia. Of course, he's the only one who has a chance of stopping them in their tracks.

The whole of SHARK IN VENICE has a lame and slapdash feel. There's some murky underwater footage and a few scenes of extras being torn apart by sharks in order to justify the title, but for the most part this is a Z-grade thriller without any thrills. The acting is bad, and not just from Baldwin who sleepwalks through the leading role. Danny Lerner produced some great B-movies over the years like Van Damme's IN HELL and Adkins's NINJA but he should have stuck with production instead of trying to direct.