White Squall A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1996 By Michael Redman
**1/2 (out of ****)
Jeff Bridges commands a sailing ship as a school for troublesome teenage boys. Using `tough love', Bridges molds the kids into a tight crew. Based on a true story, there is enough high drama here that the film doesn't need to become the mish-mash that it is.
The boys are sent (or sentenced) to the ship to build character and self-discipline. As with all movies of this genre, they do change, if for no other reason than self preservation. Without giving too much away, there is a major disaster at sea which pulls them together even more.
Big adventure, but there are problems. There is a large cast of boys who mostly look alike and act alike. It's not until late in the film that you can even tell them apart. By that time, it's impossible to remember who did what and which motivations belong to which person, except for just a few characters.
The film doesn't flow. There are a number of good, some even great, scenes, but they jump from one to another without much connection. A few moments are remarkably intense, but others are severely underplayed. A tropical island is the scene of the crossing the equator rite of passage when the boys demonstrate a new comprehension and a tribal identity. This should have marked a turning point for the group. Instead it has all the emotion of a romp through the meadow.
There are some nice bits, but in this case the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts. The film, in the words of the bard, falls apart, the center does not hold. Unfortunate.
[This appeared in the 2/8/96 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be reached at redman@bvoice.com] -- mailto:redman@bvoice.com This week's film review at http://www.bvoice.com/ Film reviews archive at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman
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