It’s Killer Man vs. Killer Whale in director Michael Anderson’s variation on “Jaws,” conjured by producer/co-writer Luciano Vincenzoni after Dino de Laurentiis called him in the middle of the night and instructed him to “find a fish tougher and more terrible than the great white.” Captain Nolan (Richard Harris) is on assignment to catch such a big fish for a local aquarium, though he gains a new target after the shark he was pursuing is killed by a massive killer whale; after Nolan catches the pregnant female and disposes of the dead fetus, the enraged male swears revenge and begins stalking the Irish seaman, eventually facing off with him in the frozen Strait of Bell Isle. Harris is clearly having a blast and ended up being one of the film’s greatest defenders, becoming upset whenever it was compared to “Jaws”; his co-stars include Charlotte Rampling as a doctor colleague and whale expert, Will Sampson as a wise Native American who understands the beast on a spiritual level and Robert Carradine, Keenan Wynn and Bo Derek as the doomed (or at least maimed) members of Nolan’s crew. – IFC Staff
