Shark Zone (2003)

Jimmy Wagner has nightmares about the day he was scuba diving with his father, a former navy seal, and the sharks arrived. Dad had taken some tourists to dive near a shipwreck, but the arrogant tourists thumbed their noses at his safety tips and went off on their own. This act of ignorance made them prime shark bait and the only person to come up from the dive was Jimmy.

With the back story in place, we cut to ten years later where Jimmy - having not aged a day - has a hot wife, a young son, and a job watching over the beaches. The upcoming festival has everyone excited, especially Mayor John Cortell, as crowds will flock to the town and take advantage of their lovely beaches and water sports, which translates to mucho tourist money.

Unfortunately it is at this time that Jimmy's past comes back to haunt him. The festival is sponsored by the evil Russian Volkoff, who insists on going out to the old shipwreck and having Jimmy guide him. There are supposed to be diamonds on the wreck and Volkoff wants them.

It is also at this point that the sharks start eating humans again. It always happens right before the big holiday weekends or summer festivals. With stock shark footage a-swimming, Jimmy insists that the Mayor shut down the beaches! But damn it, the mayor is not going to ruin the festival, or alienate the sponsor, Volkoff.

With cries of "You need to shut down the beaches" and "Everyone out of the water - we've got sharks!", plus a mayor who refuses to risk the town's revenue against a man who refuses to risk people's lives for profit, you end up with a sub-par version of "Jaws".

Jimmy is a fairly useless hero as much of his shark hunting is done by looking through binoculars, watching his friends get mauled in shark cages, or dropping bombs into the ocean in random attempts to kill any shark that happens to be in the area at that moment.

While it is essentially a poorly done rewrite of Jaws, there is some laugh value in it's lack of logic, ridiculous plot points, Volkoff's inarticulate mumbling, and the fact that the actor who plays Jimmys dad is the same one who plays the mayor. With meaningless lines like, "If you mess with this festival, it's going to be more vicious than a shark attack!", how can you not laugh?