Aatank is the Bollywood bad boy of bad shark movies

When “Jaws” shattered box office records and blew minds in 1975, it inspired countless imitations but maybe none took as long to swim their way into cinema screens as India’s 1996 epic “Aatank”. Started in the early 1980s, it went through a couple of directors, various producers, rewrites, reshoots and even body doubles to finish the epic struggle of man versus crime boss – oh, and shark.

Aatank Review

Childhood friends Jesu and Peter live happily in a coastal vilkage in India, getting up to mischief. When Jesu saves Peter’s life, Peter’s mother adopts Jesu into her family but when she dies, Peter is raised by his aunt and uncle and Jesu is back on the streets. Many years later, Jesu has grown up to be really good at badly choreographed fight scenes and defending the villagers from the oppressive rule of local gangster Alphonso. When black pearls are discovererd off the coast, the poor villagers believe their dreams have come true but Alphonso learns of the discovery and sends his men to harvest the find. Meanwhile, Peter meets Suzy D’Silva and falls in love.

There’s no two ways about it, “Aatank” is bonkers, even by the usual western perceptions of Bollywood with a mere 18 minutes passing before the first – yes first – musical numbers and yet it takes a full hour before this movie remembers its meant to be remaking “Jaws”, which it then does in breathtakingly direct style. The shark enters the fray when, following their wedding and nuptial song and dance number, Peter’s new bride Suzy decides to go for a moonlight swim while an inebriated Peter dozes in the surf.

Aatank Review

From then on, it’s dizzying, dazzling special effects which redefine the phrase ‘have to be seen to be believed’. It’s an understandably patchwork affair given its stop-start over-the-decades and yet there’s something delightfully, crazily compelling about it. As the ambition soars and the effects budget gets thinner, the movie just gets more watchable in a can’t-bare-to-look-yet-cannot-look-away way and ends up being a great deal more fun than many of the high concept SyFy original sharkfests. It’s tricky to find and you’ll need to be tolerant of subtitles (or fluent in Hindi) but if you’re into bad shark movies and have a fondness for Bollywood, “Aatank” is worth at least one watch.

shark weak 3
Aatank Review
logo

Related posts

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Review

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Review

I enthusiastically renew my request to "Make Mine Marvel!" after seeing Captain America: The Winter Soldier What are we now, nine films into the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Is there any other franchise where the ninth film can stake a pretty good claim to being the best one yet?...

Star Trek: Picard S1E01 – Remembrance

Star Trek: Picard S1E01 - Remembrance

Picard faces a twin dilemma as Star Trek sets out to do Blade Runner. EXT: VAST SMOKING CRATER. WE STAND ON THE EDGE, UNABLE TO SEE INTO THE DEPTHS BECAUSE OF THE BILLOWING PLUMES OF THICK, ACRID BLACK SMOKE. It is the year 2003 and Rick Berman, John Logan and Stuart Baird have just...

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) Review

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) Review

Keanu Reeves takes a bogus journey to Transylvania in Bram Stoker's Dracula Having secured the title rights to the name “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, Francis Ford Coppola set out to bring his vision of the Dracula legend to unlife, the first straight ‘Dracula’ adaptation for thirteen...

Beyond The Farthest Star

Beyond The Farthest Star

Star Trek: The Animated Series S1E01: Beyond The Farthest Star Welcome to the first in a series of reviews marking the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: The Animated Series, the oft-overlooked but surprisingly influential continuation of the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Initially...

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) Review

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) Review

Gremlins 2: The New Batch sees Joe Dante mischievously set out to bite the hand that feeds him with a deliberately silly metatextual satire. GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH is a sequel unlike any other. Returning to the director’s chair, Joe Dante uses the greater latitude afforded by the...

Smallfoot (2018) Review

Smallfoot (2018) Review

As the sole animated offering heading into half term, Smallfoot has some big shoes to fill. For my money, the definitive filmed adaptation of the legendary Yeti is The Goodies’ episode “Big Foot” but "Smallfoot", a tale of a tribe of Yetis living in secret on a Himalyan mountaintop might...

Blue Beetle (2023) Review

Blue Beetle (2023) Review

Family matters as Blue Beetle narrowly avoids being a barrio bust Is it the end of the old or the beginning of the new? It doesn’t really matter as BLUE BEETLE is so studiously agnostic that James Gunn, Peter Safran and David Zaslav can take their sweet time making that decision while...

Only God Forgives (2013) Review

Only God Forgives (2013) Review

Only God Forgives, which is just as well because I won't. Famously divisive at its Cannes press screening, being simultaneously booed by some critics while receiving a standing ovation from others, "Only God Forgives" - Nicolas Winding Refn & Ryan Gosling’s follow-up...