In Aroostock County, Maine, a Fish and Game officer named Walt Lawson (David Lewis) is SCUBA diving in Black Lake when he is bitten in half. The next day, Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson), Fish and Game officer Jack Wells (Bill Pullman) and paleontologist with the American Museum of Natural History named Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda) show up at the lake to investigate. With them is mythology professor and crocodile enthusiast Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt). Kelly and Hank’s canoe is flipped over, they find a human toe and a moose head, and Hank’s deputy Burke (Jed Rees) has his head bitten off.
The next day, while Hank and Hector are arguing, a big brown bear attacks them, but a thirty-foot crocodile snaps it up and drags it underwater. They find Burke’s severed head. And they notice Mrs. Delores Bickerman (the wonderful Betty White) feeding a blindfolded cow to the crocodile. She admits to feeding it for years, after it ate her husband Bernie. She is placed under house arrest for lying to the police.
Hector decides to take Deputy Sharon Gare (Meredith Salinger) on a trip in his helicopter and has to land in the croc’s territory. He runs into it while SCUBA diving but they distract it with an inflatable raft. Jack and Hank plan to let Florida Fish and Game kill the creature when they arrive, but Hector suggests they lure it out of the water and tranquilize it because it’s such a rare find. Jack reluctantly agrees and they use one of Mrs. Bickerman’s cows dangling from the helicopter to draw it in.
After a few hours, the crocodile shows up and grabs the cow, but the helicopter crashes in the lake. It comes up on the land and attacks Jack, Kelly, and the whole group. Kelly is knocked into the lake but makes it into the helicopter. The croc is trapped in the helicopter just as it gets to Kelly. Jack gabs a gun and shoots it, but it is a tranquilizer gun and does nothing. As Hector comes out of the water, another crocodile—apparently its mate--attacks him, but Hank blows it up with a grenade launcher. Florida Fish and Game arrive, pack up the unconscious croc on a truck and take it to Portland to try and figure out what to do with it. A week later, Old Lady Bickerman is feeding a brood of baby Crocs.
The film was written by David E. Kelley, who wrote half the shows on TV, and directed by Steve Miner. It was produced by Stan Winston Studios and was shot mostly in British Columbia. It produced a litter of low-budget made-for-TV monster sequels. Everyone, including Rotten Tomatoes, agreed that Betty White stole the movie from some brilliant actors and a 30-foot crocodile. The croc is ten feet longer than the biggest real one ever found. It is only on screen for 3 minutes and 43 seconds. The crocodile puppet was dunked in the lake to test it out and it actually swam. It turns out that crocodiles actually do weep crocodile tears, but not out of false remorse. They do it was clean their eyes. The bear and a cow were also animatronic.
Mrs. Bickerman is told that PETA was on her case for her treatment of her cows. Of course, Betty White was a long-time supporter of PETA. Her character admits to hitting her husband with a skillet. On Boston Legal, she played a woman who did the same thing. The big gun was called a Lightweight Forward Area Air Device Unit. The movie could have been faster paced and a bit scarier, but to call it a failed cheap B-movie, as some reviewers did, is to miss the point entirely. There is no camp and no accidental laughs here. There are great character actors reading wonderful, wry, snappy dialog, and some delicious black humor. And as Roger Ebert once said about Bridget Fonda, even her teeth are sexy.