What is it, to be a man? This is the question, indeed, many of us ask ourselves. In this, our post-macho, post-feminist, post-metrosexual era, what then becomes the measure of a man? What is it that defines his life, gives him meaning, makes him a man? Indeed such a question is difficult to answer, at times perhaps even seemingly impossible. And so we enter an era of confusion, of aimlessness, until at last something emerges from the chaos to point the way, to illuminate us, to help us along on our journey and, at long last, make the answer as clear as the crystal blue waters of Cozumel. What is it, to be a man? Let Franco Nero tell you. No, no — let Franco Nero show you.

The first fifteen minutes of Enzo G. Castellari’s Shark Hunter play as follows. We meet the titular shark hunter, Franco Nero, looking like he just stumbled out of the jungle and fell into a puddle of crazed hippie biker, while perched on a rock overlooking the ocean. Suddenly a shark catches his eye, causing him to leap up, run down the beach while accompanied by the sounds of Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis prog rock, and struggle to haul the thrashing beast to shore. He then retires to his open air beach bungalow to make love to his beautiful Mexican senorita, then goes to a bar where he beats the crap out of half a dozen thugs. Happy that Franco has whooped ass on the goon squad, a local takes him out for a bit of parasailing. I know, I know. You’re thinking to yourself that while hauling in a fishing line hooked to a man-eating shark is tough, and making love on the beach to a sexy gal is tough, and beating up half a dozen hired bruisers is tough, there’s not much that’s tough about parasailing. That’s what sunburned fat Americans do when they visit resorts, right? What’s so tough about that? Well, nothing. But while Franco does admittedly get a kick out of the parasailing, what makes this tough parasailing is that, while in mid-air, he spies a shark in the water below, let’s out a primal whoop of excitement, cuts himself loose from the parachute harness, plunges into the water, and immediately starts punching the shark in the face.

Although everything about the movie, from the title to Franco Nero’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for punching sharks in the face, would lead you to believe that this is going to be another in the brief but highly enjoyable line of Italian Jaws rip-offs along the lines of director Castellari’s own L’Ultimo Squalo, a film that so closely aped (or sharked) Jaws and Jaws 2 that an injunction was issued against it, spoiling big plans to unleash it in American movie theaters and, in fact, even going to far as to ensure that it would never see the light of day even on home video. However, after the insane opening and Franco Nero’s lesson on how to be a real man, Shark Hunter settles down into being a rip-off not of Jaws, but of another American film, 1977’s The Deep starring Nick Nolte and Jaqueline “Miss Goodthighs” Bisset as scuba divers who stumble across a fortune in sunken drugs. That film was remade in 2005 as Into the Blue, starring Paul Walker and Jessica Alba. That movie was completely idiotic, but I enjoyed it if for no other reason than it had cool scuba scenes and lots of shots of Paul Walker and Jessica Alba being scantily clad. Plus, it’s not like doing a dumb remake of a movie that was pretty dumb to begin with was any great crime against cinematic art. Of course, I also like The Deep, and it used to scare the crap out of me as a kid.

You see, I come from a long line of scuba divers, and by “long line” I mean my dad and, later, my sister. But I grew up around diving and diving equipment, and as a kid I used to get into my old man’s trunk full of equipment and get gussies up in the way-too-large for me wetsuit and flippers, mask, and dive knife, which I referred to more dramatically as the shark knife. I’d then stomp around the basement, playing Thunderball and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and trying to throw the knife into the bare 2x4s of the unfinished walls. When I got to watch The Deep on our brand new Betamax video machine, it enthralled and terrified me. I loved all the scuba stuff, and even at a young age I know there was something special about Jaqueline Bisset in a bikini. But the one thing anyone remembers about that movie is the moray eels. My dad used to tell me outrageous tales about moray eels, and how the way their teeth curved in meant that once they bit you, it was impossible to remove them. You just had to pull out your knife and amputate your arm. The Deep certainly backed those stories up, and for years, the sight of sharks and barracuda did little to phase me, but I was always wary of eels. Even after I learned that moray eels are basically docile so long as you don’t go shoving your arm into their hidey holes, I still get antsy when I turn around underwater and see one of them floating there, staring at me inquisitively with that horrible, evil grin they all have.

Shark Hunter, however, is better than either The Deep or Into the Blue, and Franco Nero looks less like Nick Nolte in The Deep and more like Nick Nolte in his more recent mug shot. But the gist of Shark Hunter is that Nero’s character, Mike di Donato, gets pressured by a local gangster into helping salvage a downed plane full of loot. Franco and his parasailing buddy try to figure out a way to get the gangsters off their back and outsmart them. Despite the expectation generated from a title like Shark Hunter, there isn’t much shark action in this film other than the beginning and the very end. Most of the action revolves around Franco Nero in his ratty shirt and bell-bottom dungarees getting into fights on the beach, only to have his beloved Juanita (Patricia Rivera) threatened by the gangsters. And there’s a lot of scuba diving, sometimes with sharks present, which is a touchy subject for a lot of people.

Scuba scenes usually get a bum rap in movies for being somewhat slow moving and boring. They do happen underwater, after all. I actually think a lot of scuba diving scenes are kind of keen, owing to my enjoyment of scuba diving, and depending on how they are filmed. Thunderball, for example, has pretty thrilling scuba scenes. All those Jacques Cousteau documentaries have cool scuba scenes. The Incredible Petrified World does not succeed as well with its many scuba scenes of guys sort of doing nothing for like ten minutes at a time. Anyway, point is that scuba scenes don’t have to boring, even if they frequently are. Shark Hunter has pretty good scuba scenes, though one wonders why Nero spends so much time diving in his blue jeans when he later reveals he owns perfectly good shorts and a wetsuit. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to swim in blue jeans, but it’s not pleasant. The scuba scenes are also aided by the fact that Castellari was fond of slow motion action scenes anyway, so you hardly even notice the diving is slow. At least he didn’t film them in slow motion.

Castellari and Nero worked together several times before most notably on the superb 1971 poliziotteschi thriller High Crime. Among the many, many directors who made a living in the murky waters of Italian exploitation films, Castellari was one of the best when he was on his game. Like Umberto Lenzi and Antonio Margheriti, Castellari managed to direct some really great action films. He also managed to direct some really awful ones. Castellari, however, directed fewer truly awful films than did Lenzi and Margheriti, possibly because Castellari managed to avoid having to make crappy cannibal movies. Where as other directors skipped from one genre to the next based on whatever trend was at the forefront of exploitation cinema that week, Castellari stayed pretty well grounded in action films. He avoided horror almost entirely. Even when he ventured into the realm of other genres — most notably a few post-apocalypse Road Warrior rip-offs in the 1980s — he treated them more or less like action films. The one time he worked almost completely outside the realm of what he was familiar with was 1989’s Sinbad of the Seven Seas, and we can see how that worked out for him. By the 1980s, there was no doubt Castellari knew his stuff, even if he wasn’t exactly what you might call a visionary artist. He did have his style though, and he seems interested in Shark Hunter, which he keeps moving along nicely and crammed full of action both above and below the ocean surface.

If there’s anything to criticize in Castellari’s direction, it’s the choice to use footage of real sharks being caught and killed. This only happens once or twice, and I suppose scenes of shark fishing are more defensible than other scenes of real animal cruelty that pop up in Italian exploitation films, but it’s something to warn people about. I understand why they used real footage, though I don’t necessarily agree with the decision. But then, I used togo fishing, and lord knows we used to take pictures of ourselves with our fish, so I guess that’s why I can’t see to getting too worked up about the scenes of a hooked shark in this movie, as opposed to the far more frequent and far more abusive animal killing that goes on in those cannibal films.

Franco Nero is in good form here, looking completely deranged and badly in need of a shower. You’d think a dude who constantly went swimming and shark punching in the clear waters of Cozumel, Mexico, wouldn’t have so much soot and crap smeared all over his face, but then you’d also expect that a guy with a girlfriend that pretty would have at least two pairs of clothes. But the only thing he has is his outfit, and then the same outfit with a hat and sunglasses. Nero throws himself headlong into the role though, lending it gravity and a great intensity, and the look is pretty spectacular. Nero made a career out of playing bad-asses, and while he’s not as bad-ass here as he was in some of his old cop films, he still punches sharks in the face and jumps out of parachutes to wrestle them. Eventually, the movie gets around to explaining why sharks piss him off so much, but it’s pretty uneventful and predictable. He goes on to have family members killed in a traffic accident, but he doesn’t run around Mexico punching cars and trying to drag them back to his bungalow. And given how much the guy hates sharks, and how he seems to spend all day sitting around just waiting for a change to sock one in the jaw, you have to wonder they come to his aid all Aquaman-style during the underwater finale. I guess they respect his predatory, killer instinct and knotty tangle of blond locks.

Helping the movie be that much cooler is the music by Italian exploitation film staples Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis. Blending rock, prog, and film orchestration, G&M, who also worked under collective name Oliver Onions for some reason, turn in a great score that perfectly matches the action and fires up the blood. Pairing all that with nice location work in Cozumel — my dad’s favorite dive spot, incidentally — makes for an all-around thrilling action film that is far different than the Jaws inspired title would otherwise lead you to believe.