Mako: The Jaws of Death

Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976)

A man who lives his life swimming with sharks faces some challenges when he mistakenly puts his trust in a local scientist and an exotic dancer. Released a full year after the success of Jaws, Mako is quite different from what you expect in a typical shark movie. Mako is far more sympathetic toward sharks, and the protagonist is a man who is tired of society and seems more at home with sea creatures. In some ways, this movie is more like Billy Jack than Jaws, and the protagonist's bohemian lifestyle makes him more sympathetic to viewers. The movie features excellent footage of sharks in their native habitats, and the filmmakers did most of their work without shark cages to give the sharks room to swim more naturally. Mako: The Jaws of Death wasn't gonna break the box office and isn't for most viewers, but its sympathetic message about sharks shows the filmmakers understood the damage Jaws did by making sharks into villains rather than misunderstood predators.