Crappy film

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

A Brilliant Conflict

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Clint Gray (Doph Lundgren) is an exotic species dealer that releases a bull shark into Lake Tahoe. Meredith Hernandez (Sara Lane) is a Sheriff Department officer that could easily be a cut out paper doll. She will be in charge of tracking down Gray for illegal animal trading. After Gray is arrested, put behind bars and is released...the bull shark begins attacking people. A vacationing oceanographer, Peter Mayes (Michael Aaron Milligan), teams up with the pretty law officer for an all-out shark hunt. Meanwhile, Gray decides to interfere.Jerry Dugan directs; CGI is mediocre, and some may find SHARK LAKE is too humorous to be very scary. This flick was partially filmed in Mississippi.Other players: Melissa Bolona, James Clarke, Lily Brooks O'Briant and Ibriham Renno.

"Shark Lake" is one of those types of movies where you look at the movie cover or the poster and think "why?". But still, it is a Dolph Lundgren movie, so I decided to sit down and watch it. I did grow up watching his movies after all."Shark Lake" is not Dolph Lundgren's brightest moment in cinema history, not even by a long shot. Actually, I will go as far as to question why he actually did this movie, because it was just such a far slip away from his previous countless action movies, both good and questionable ones.The story in this movie is about Clint Gray (played by Dolph Lundgren), a former criminal trying to do right by his estranged daughter Carly Gray (played by Lily Brooks O'Briant). But when the local lake falls prey to vicious man-eating sharks, single-mom and overzealous police offer Meredith Hendricks (played by Sara Malakul Lane) pick up arms to defend the town and her daughter Carly. But the danger of the sharks and the fate of the dealt cards in her hand leave her crossing paths with her former husband Clint Gray...Right, well there was nothing overly Shakespearian or thespian to this storyline. It is a simple storyline, for sure, but it serves it purpose well enough, because it doesn't really beat around the bush.However, a shark movie needs to have sharks that are realistic and that you actually think of as being a real threat. However, the sharks in "Shark Lake" failed to deliver that, and they were more of a CGI internship project gone straight to DVD.The action in "Shark Lake" was adequate, taking into consideration what kind of movie this is. However, it should be said that you shouldn't get your hopes up here, if you are a fan of Dolph Lundgren in any way, because it wasn't up to level with his usual movies.Having seen this movie, I can now cross it off the list. And I can with all honesty say that I will never be making a return trip to watch "Shark Lake", because it doesn't support more than a single viewing in any way; and actually if you do get through the first viewing then that is an accomplishment in itself.If you enjoy shark movies, stay well clear of "Shark Lake". If you enjoy Dolph Lundgren movies, don't go out of your way to watch "Shark Lake". It is, in fact, a less than mediocre movie experience in every sense of the word.

Swimmers and land-lovers begin to become part of the food chain In a quiet town on Lake Tahoe. After Legendary (2013) Dolph Lundgren returns to another creature features themed film in this slightly better than a Syfy feature thanks to some murky CGI. Lundgren with limited screen time plays a black-market exotic species dealer named Clint, I kid you not.With a setting reminiscent of Lake Placid, there's plenty of fake blood, CGI and attacks in two feet of water. It warms up slightly in the last twenty minutes and as the water gets deeper, but don't go expecting Jaws or The Reef, as Dolph and company thump their way to survival. It's played straight and the actors do there best, notable is the young actress Lily Brooks O'Briant and Sara Malakul Lane as cop Meredith Hendricks.To director Jerry Dugan's credit the fantastic location gives it some atmosphere and the night-time scenes hide much of the production's low budge short comings. With an air of seriousness it's better than the endless amount of CGI shark versus... fill in the blank, or spoofs doing the rounds. Its not good or memorable enough to achieve cult status, a lot of effort has gone into this but it's probably no coincidence they're hunting a Bullshark.

You have to appreciate Dolph Lundgren's tenacity to make movies, he churns out robust quantity of them in last year alone. Unfortunately, in Shark Lake he seems like just a famous name slapped into the title and poster, while being almost completely isolated from the main plot. The movie itself is appealingly bad, this is the level of sloppy presentation equal to random death scene in telenovela with silly fake shark fin, which admittedly surprising to see outside cartoon.It all goes down in a formulaic monster movie plot, if you haven't predicted it already, there's a lake and shark on it. Cue the montage of silly party girls, stupid death scenes, incompetent authority figure, but wait, it has Dolph Lundgren. However, he's more of a subplot, separated from the rest. It's almost like an average action portion glued to a monster movie.This is pretty disappointing since the best spark the movie has is the simple family drama. No one would form connection to plastic shark, but audience may relate to Dolph Lundgren as the ex-con trying to bond with her estranged little daughter. It is the closest to sincerity on this movie, yet it occurs too little too late.Concerning the actual threat, it's undeniably horrible. The visual is incredibly bad, using cheap editing, poor animation effect and actual fake shark fin. The corpse of mechanical Jaws rolls on its watery grave. One can even see the drop in quality when transitioning from day to night. It looks so fake that it would've worked as parody, yet the movie insists on the gritty dark look, it's a bit sad really.Shark Lake is, by no intention of itself, a parody of Jaws. The brief appearance from Dolph Lundgren can't save it and merely serves as timid advertisement.