THE PERFECT STORM
"The Perfect Storm" puts you behind the stern wheel of the fishing vessel, the Andrea Gail, for one of the most thrilling sea adventures to hit the screen in ages. It’s an exciting woulda-shoulda-coulda story of the Gloucester fishermen who lost their lives in one of the worst hurricanes in recorded history. Based on the best seller by Sebastian Junger which was inspired by real events, the perfect storm of the title is actually made of three separate storm fronts that converged on the Andrea Gail and tossed the ship and its crew into a blender with nature’s fiercest elements. It’s the age old story of men against the sea and much more. "The Perfect Storm" also details the work-a-day life of a class of people invisible to the landlubbers of the world.
George Clooney is remarkable in an uncharacteristically low key performance as Capt. Billy Tyne, the skipper of the Andrea Gail whose fortunes have come and gone with the rise and fall of the tides. Tyne knows the life of a skipper is measured in dog years and he’s not getting any younger. Like a gypsy, he knows the chartered waters like the lifelines of his hand. They’re a part of him, so he thinks nothing of going back to sea for one last haul for the season after a poor catch and a bruised ego leaves him wanting. That’s okay with the boat’s owner, Bobby Brown (Michael Ironside) who gets fifty cents on the dollar from Tyne’s work. But not everyone is happy about his decision like the son who seldom sees his father (John C. Reilly) and the girl (Diane Lane) back home who can’t understand the need for her lover (Mark Wahlberg) to go to sea. They’re sword fishermen -that’s what they do! - is the only explanation.
With "The Perfect Storm," director Wolfgang Peterson attempts to do something Hollywood used to do on a regular basis - reveal the essence of each character before moving on to the action. Unfortunately, these early scenes have some inane dialogue, a couple of overeager actors, and one relationship between two of Tyne’s crewmen that stretches the limits of credibility. Luckily the story moves quickly beyond its few hokey moments and gets on with the action and a storm that is just one more obstacle between the crewmen and a big payday after a humongus haul at The Flemish Cap - a place known for lots’a fish and bad weather. Tyne’s known a few storms in his lifetime, so a little bad weather doesn’t bother him. The only things the seamen don’t count on are a bad radio, mechanical failure, and two more storms to test their mettle. Once the storms begin to mix their brew of thunder’n lightning, rain’n wind, and thirty to one hundred foots waves, the filmmakers do everything but install motion control seats to make you feel every pitch and roll of the ocean’s fury. From the Andrea Gail to the ordeals of an unsuspecting sailboat, a cargo tanker, and the derring-do of the heroic Coast Guardsman sent to save them with their Cutters and Choppers, Wolfgang Peterson puts you in the eye of the storm. "The Perfect Storm" is one truly amazing movie that makes me perfectly happy to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.
Suggested video pix with water logged themes
"White Squall" (1996) - ""Gladiator's" director, Ridley Scott brings to life another fact based story about a once in a lifetime storm that puts a skipper and his floating school for boys in peril. Kids die and people want to know why. Jeff Bridges is the task master with Jeremy Sistro, Scott Wolf and Ryan Phillippe as some of the kids. Everyone is terrific and the storm, though it takes up less time, is almost every bit as sensational as "The Perfect Storm's.
"Captains Courageous" (1937) - A classic from the MGM vaults with Freddie Bartholomew as a spoiled rich kid who falls off a steamship and is rescued by a Portuguese fishing crew headed by Lionel Barrymore. Spencer Tracy won an Oscar as the guy who teaches him the meaning of responsibility and Mickey Rooney is the kid who befriends him Based on a story by Rudyard Kipling.
"Down to the Sea in Ships" (1949) - Barrymore is once again a crusty sea captain, this time on a whaler out of Gloucester with Richard Widmark as the sailor who takes Dean Stockwell under his wing. Not up there with "Captains Courageous" but still a terrific picture.
"The Hurricane" (1937) - A non-western classic from the master, John Ford, about an idyllic South Sea island run by a tyrannical governor, and threatened by a typhoon. This is an amazingly simple story of good guys and bad guys whose destinies lie in their common desire to survive the killer typhoon that takes up the last half hour of the movie. It’s all sets an miniatures but the cumulative effect is just as effective as the CGI effects of "The Perfect Storm."
"Das Boot" (German with Eng. subtitles) aka "The Boat" (1981) - I would be hard pressed not to mention the international hit that brought Wolfgang Petersen and its star Jurgen Prochnow to Hollywood. It’s one of the great submarine warfare movies of all time about a U Boat commander stretched to the breaking point. The theatrical release was a cut version of a German TV mini series that ran over three an a half hours.