History Film / TheLastShark

** We see the Confederate flag in a couple of crowd shots, and the last shot at the end of the movie shows a car license plate from Georgia, so that might be the implication of its location. However, if it ''is'' intended to be the South, then there is a new problem: not one person in the entire film ''has a Southern accent.'' Seriously, not ''one.'' So it makes this even more confusing.

* BittersweetEnding: One area the film ''doesn't'' copy ''Jaws''.[[spoiler:The older film ends on a relieved note, ''The Last Shark'' ends with Peter having defeated the shark but at the cost of several lives, including his best friend, Ron Hamer, while his daughter won't recover for a long time either physically or mentally...When the {{Jerkass}} reporter is first to greet his return to land, bombarding him with questions about being a hero... Peter responds by punching him out. Then he drives off as sombre music plays.]]

''The Last Shark'' (Italian title: ''L'ultimo squalo''), also known as ''Great White'', is a 1981 Italian horror film [[UsefulNotes/{{Plagiarism}} "influenced by"]] ''Film/{{Jaws}}''.

* InformedAbility: Both Peter and Ron are talked up as shark experts, but they both fail miserably in every attempt to catch the shark. [[spoiler: To the degree that Ron gets drowned and eaten by it without even inflicting a single wound throughout the entire film.]] In their defense, both were facing a shark that was even bigger than the one in Jaws, and the two shark experts in that film were also hamstrung by the size of it and the fact that it was smarter and behaved in ways they didn't anticipate a shark could.

* NeverTrustATitle: Nothing implies that the shark in the film is the last of its kind.

* TookALevelInJerkAss: Bob Martin, in the early goings, seems to be a weak reporter, put upon by Mayor Wells, who expects him to jump at a moment's notice, edit footage at lightning speed, and orders him around like his own personal assistant. [[spoiler:Later, Bob gets so wrapped up in getting footage to advance his career that when his own cameraman Jimmy is in danger, he orders him to keep shooting, makes no effort to help him and others that are at risk of being eaten, and isn't bothered in the slightest when Jimmy gets bitten in half.]]

** We see the confederate flag in a couple of crowd shots, and the last shot at the end of the movie shows a car license plate from Georgia.

* AttackOfTheTownFestival: The shark appears and menaces people during the town's wind-surfing regatta. Bizarrely, the shark goes around knocking everyone off their boards, but ''not'' eating them. Only one person gets eaten at the very end of the scene, [[spoiler:The mayor's aide, who was most vocal is his disbelief of the shark, and gets killed by it with LaserGuidedKarma.]]

* BittersweetEnding: One area the film ''doesn't'' copy ''Jaws''.[[spoiler:The older film ends on a relieved note, ''The Last Shark'' ends with Peter having defeated the shark but the cost of several lives, including his best friend, Ron Hamer, while his daughter won't recover for a long time either physically or mentally...When the {{Jerkass}} reporter is first to greet him returns to land, bombarding him questions about being a hero... Peter responds by punching him out. Then he drives off as sombre music plays.]]

** Hammer tells Peter the "dynamite" he's carrying is purely as a back-up. [[spoiler:It ends up saving both their lives once, when the shark creates a rockslide to trap them in an underwater cave, and again in the finale, when Peter feeds Ron's drowned corpse to the shark and remotely triggers the second batch of explosives he's carrying in his belt to blow the shark up.]]

** Plus, sharks only need to eat about 1-10% of their total body weight ''per week.'' Assuming this particular Great White Shark is between 1,200 and 2,400 lbs, it would only need to eat 1-2 people in an entire week (under the assumption the average person weighs 137 lbs). Instead, we see the shark gorge itself on several people ''in the same day.'' In the finale, he eats [[spoiler: Chris, Wells, Wells' pilot, the cameraman (to be fair, he was bitten in half and not completely consumed), Riley, and is chewing in Ron Hamer's drowned corpse before Peter finally manages to kill it.]] The shark also ate Mike in the opening, so if this is the same week, that is way too many people for one shark to consume.

* MajorPain: Played with Mayor Wells. He refuses to close down the beaches, but still authorizes heavy defenses to keep the shark away which include barriers (unfortunately the shark [[{{Determinator}} is not one to let this get in the way of its feeding]]). The worst aspects of Vaughn's character [[DecompositeCharacter are instead given]] to Wells' aide Matt.

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Played with. [[spoiler: After his daughter loses her leg, Peter becomes adamant about killing the shark himself, to the point of insulting Hamer when Hamer tries to intervene. It takes Hamer reminding Peter that it's not only a risk for both to be underwater if they run into trouble, he also has to remind him he's risking leaving his wife and daughter, who need him, behind if he gets killed. It does snap him out of his mental break, and later, when he's the only hope the community has, Benton is able to succeed in killing the shark with Hamer's explosives-laden corpse.]]
* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler: Ron gets dragged to his death early in the final battle against the shark, leaving Peter by himself to kill the shark.]]

** Subverted: [[spoiler: To help out his father's re-election campaign, William Wells, Jr. decides the best course of action is to take out his father's yacht into the open sea, use a piece of meat as a lure, and, with Peter's daughter and two others in tow, attempt to kill the shark with a shotgun. It goes disastrously. The shotgun holder shoots at the shark with spread buckshot from a distance of more than 20 feet, while not shooting it at all while it's eating the meat right next to the boat. Wells Jr. avoids any physical harm, but Peter's daughter gets her leg bitten off after the pole they have the meat attached to jars loose and knocks her in the water. It's only them quickly being found by Wells, Sr. and Peter in Wells, Sr.'s helicopter that prevents Jenny from bleeding to death from her amputated limb.]]
** Played straight with [[spoiler: William Wells, Sr. He decides the best course of action is to hook a piece of meat to the winch of his helicopter, presumably to hook the shark and pull it out of the water to suffocate it. Since the shark is 30 ft. long, it proves far too heavy to lift, and after biting off Wells Sr.'s legs, it finishes the job by pulling the helicopter under as well, and killing Bernie, Wells Sr.'s pilot. ]] To be fair, at the time, he does blame himself for the earlier incident, but his response was to participate in something that had no chance of being successful. Worse [[spoiler: His son's last memory of his father is being slapped by him in Wells Sr.'s disappointment of him. ]]
** Also played straight with [[spoiler: Riley. He stands on a flimsy dock with meat attached to it in an attempt to shoot the shark with a specialized gun. The shark easily rips the dock loose and pulls it into deep water, Riley loses the gun almost immediately in the water after being bumped in the confusion, and ends up making a semi-heroic sacrifice and being eaten.]]

* TookALevelInJerkAss: Bob Martin, in the early goings, seems to be a weak reporter, put upon by Mayor Wells, who expects him to jump at a moment's notice, edit footage at lightning speed, and orders him around like his own personal assistant. [[spoiler: Later, Bob gets so wrapped up in getting footage to advance his career that when his own cameraman Jimmy is in danger, he orders him to keep shooting, makes no effort to help him and others that are at risk of being eaten, and isn't bothered in the slightest when Jimmy gets bitten in half.]]
* WhateverHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler: After Wells is eaten by the shark, no one reacts whatsoever. Given what a big deal he seemed to be in the town, it's utterly bizarre that his death is never addressed, not even by his son.]]

** We see the confederate flag in a couple of crowd shots, implying to me it's set somewhere Carolina and south.