Sharky's Machine (film)

Infobox Film
name = Sharky's Machine


image_size =
caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Burt Reynolds
producer = Hank Moonjean
writer = William Diehl
Gerald Di Pego
narrator =
starring = Burt Reynolds
Vittorio Gassman
Rachel Ward
Carol Locatell
Brian Keith
music =
cinematography = William A. Fraker
editing = William D. Gordean
Dennis Virkler
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = December 18, 1981
runtime = 122 min
country = USA
language = English
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:44170
imdb_id = 0083064

"Sharky's Machine" is a 1981 motion picture directed by Burt Reynolds. Reynolds also starred in the title role of Sgt Tom Sharky. The movie is an adaptation of William Diehl's first novel "Sharky's Machine" (1978), with a screenplay by Gerald Di Pego. Diehl, who was age fifty when he wrote the novel, saw the movie shot on location in and around his hometown of Atlanta, GA. Its cast included Vittorio Gassman, Brian Keith, Charles Durning, Earl Holliman, Rachel Ward, Bernie Casey, Henry Silva, and Richard Libertini.

It has been the most successful box-office release of a film directed by Burt Reynolds.

Plot

Tom Sharky is a narcotics cop in Atlanta who's demoted to vice after a botched bust. In the depths of this lowly division, while investigating a high-dollar prostitution ring, Sharky stumbles across a mob murder with government ties, and responds by assembling his downtrodden fellow investigators (Sharky's "machine") to find the leaders and bring them to justice before they kill off all his partners and witnesses, including Sharky himself.

Production

At 220 feet, the stunt from Atlanta's Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel still holds up as the highest free-fall stunt ever performed from a building for a commercially-released film. The stuntman was the legendary Dar Robinson. Despite it being a record-setting fall, only the briefest moment of the beginning of the fall is used in the movie. The bulk of the fall from the skyscraper as shown on film is clearly of a dummy.

A remake of the film is in production, directed by Phil Joanou and produced by Mark Wahlberg, tentatively scheduled for a 2008 release. [cite web
url=http://movies.about.com/od/moviesinproduction/a/sharkys040606.htm
title=The Burt Reynolds Movie Sharky's Machine Gets the Remake Treatment
author=Rebecca Murray
work=About.com]

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0083064|title=Sharky's Machine