Swimming with Sharks

Guy is a young film school graduate who lands a job as an assistant to Hollywood producer Buddy Ackerman. The position looks like a step toward the career he wants, but Buddy turns out to be a bullying and manipulative boss who humiliates and exploits his staff without hesitation. Guy endures the abuse because the work keeps him close to the industry, and because his girlfriend, Dawn, is trying to place a screenplay with Buddy's help. When the mistreatment goes too far, Guy decides to take revenge by kidnapping Buddy and making him suffer for what he has done.

Swimming with Sharks is a 1994 American comedy-crime film written and directed by George Huang. It was the first film Huang directed, and he later made Trojan War and Weekend in Taipei. The cast includes Kevin Spacey as Buddy Ackerman, Frank Whaley as Guy, Michelle Forbes as Dawn Lockard, Benicio del Toro as Rex, T.E. Russell as Foster Kane and Roy Dotrice as Cyrus Miles. Steve Alexander and Joanne Moore produced it for Trimark Pictures and Cineville, and it runs 93 minutes.

On IMDb, viewers rate it 7 out of 10 from around 26,000 votes; on TMDB the score is 6.6 out of 10 from roughly 343 votes. A film critics' rating of 6.8 out of 10 from 38 reviews places professional responses close to the audience average. The pattern suggests a film generally regarded as solid rather than outstanding, with a much larger general audience than a specialized one.