Wait, I actually liked this movie? Not even in the sole sense of it being a fun b-movie? Bait, is actually okay as a film? I mean, it's good for a movie about people being trapped in a supermarket and hunted by sharks because a tsunami caused the place to flood. I guess you can take that as you will.
If you believe that the synopsis for Bait is real, then you will probably be skeptical in my saying that it ends up being an entertaining film. Good is a relative term in normal circumstances, but with a Sharksploitation film, good can mean a lot of things. It's not a classic by far, even by b-movie standards. Nothing really stands out other than its premise. Bait sits nicely in the middle of lightly goofy and semi-entertaining. Which, of course, when you mix those elements together, you are left with a goofily entertaining semi. Jokes!
Getting into the film itself, I liked how the movie didn't dwell on the tsunami. It happened, trapped the characters in a flooding supermarket, and then went away. It subverted my expectations of what I thought of giant dangerous waves that crash ashore in populated areas. Bait may be the only movie I have seen where a massive tsunami is essential to the main plot, but it's never really referenced afterward. As for the shark attacks, there are some good ones, but the movie sticks to the basic jump out of the water to eat them or eat their bottom half as they try to climb away type thing. Nothing too new or exciting. The sharks themselves don't look too bad either, which was nice. In fact, the main issue I have with this film is the acting. There is a large cast of characters here, and their acting skills range from average to awful. Some of the characters became hard to take seriously, as they delivered their lines with all the acting skills of a theater student with "big dreams." If Bait was a straight out "bad" movie, that wouldn't have been such a big deal. But because it has some solid stuff going for it, the bad acting stands out.
I admit I probably liked this more than others will. The pace left me entertained for the full run time, even when it meshed together some more serious moments with goofy shark stuff. So, while far from perfect, Bait was a solid and mostly entertaining fluff movie about sharks, tsunamis, and tiny dogs.