Ben
Meyers’ rating: 3.2|5.0 Stars ììì
The
Perfect Storm—based on the true story of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing boat
that fails to return home—tries to perform as a ‘big-scale’ movie, but falls
short of its aim. This tragic story has no happy ending and is a deep reminder
of nature’s power to end life.
Film Poster Courtesy of Wikipedia
Storyline
A
fishing boat comes to shore in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Fall 1991, with a
small catch. Men wrench in a bucket of fish and throw them on ice. A carpenter
planes a thin piece of wood for a boat. Other men wrap up buoys in nets. The
camera moves to an old mansion turned into a City Hall and shows a plaque that
says ‘Gloucester Settled in 1623, Incorporated into a town in 1642, a city 1873’.
The camera then shows a ship in a glass case, a security guard sleeping in a chair
against the wall with two lists of names posted to each side of him. The camera
starts to zoom in on the ship in the glass case and the screen changes to one
of the posters with two columns: one from 1914 and the other from 1918. Then the
screens change to columns from 1804, 1805, 1813, 1789, 1924, 1929 that list
people who have died at sea. Then the camera shows a metal statue of a fisherman
driving his boat while looking across an endless ocean. The camera shows a room
with curtains flapping in a storm and a sleeping woman calling out, ‘Bobby’.
She awakes, gets out of bed, walks to the window, and looks into a tranquil
night graced with a calm ocean, and the story is off and running.
Additional Thanks
Thank
you to Director Wolfgang Petersen for directing efforts. Thank you to Executive
Producers Duncan Henderson and Barry Levinson for making the film possible.
Additional characters/cast include: Billy Tyne (George Clooney), Bobby Shatford
(Mark Wahlberg), Dale Murphy (John C. Reilly), Christina Cotter (Diane Lane),
David Sullivan (William Fichtner), Mike Moran (John Hawkes), Alfred Pierre
(Allen Payne), Linda Greenlaw (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), and Melissa Brown
(Karen Allen).
Buy a ticket? Yes? No? Maybe?
Yes.
While the film is not remarkable, it is not often that Hollywood chooses to
tell a story about fishing as a livelihood and the perils that accompany that
trade. It’s a fair afternoon watch even though it presents nothing new in story
and does not offer a happy ending.
Video Critique Available Here:
Ben Meyers
