THE PERFECT STORM (2000) / ** 1/2
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Screenplay by William D Wittliff, based on the novel by Sebastian Junger. Starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C Reilly. Running time: 129 minutes. Rated PG for mature theme by the MFCB. Reviewed on July 19th, 2000.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
Few movies in recent times have attracted as much interest in Newfoundland as "The Perfect Storm". Showings have been selling out regularly since opening day, attracting not only the core movie-going teen and young adult populations, but people of all ages. This comes as little surprise: for five hundred years, the fate of Newfoundlanders has been inextricably linked to the sea. Reports of maritime tragedies are not infrequent occurrences on local newscasts, and every Newfoundlander is deeply aware of how a poor fishing season can break individual fishermen and indeed whole communities.
The subject matter of "The Perfect Storm", then, is near and dear to the people of this province. Few films could strike more directly at the heart of our communal conscience. Although the Newfoundland economy has diversified in the past century -- gone are the days when almost everyone was a fisherman, or at least related to one -- tales of fierce storms on the Atlantic and loved ones lost in the pursuit of the almighty catch still ring true to many.
"The Perfect Storm" is like the mother of such stories: the culmination of all those tales of horror and tragedy, made all the more chilling (and fascinating) because it is based on real events. It is a fact that around Hallowe'en of 1991, three separate weather systems -- Hurricane Grace coming up out of the Bahamas, a rainstorm crossing westward across the ocean, and a cold front sweeping down from the Arctic -- collided in the vicinity of the Grand Banks, the vast fishing grounds off the coast of Atlantic Canada and New England. The result was one of the worst storms ever recorded, and the swordboat "Andrea Gail", out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, was caught in the middle of it.
"The Perfect Storm" dramatises these events. Billy Tyne (George Clooney), skipper of the "Andrea Gail", is a once-great captain fallen on hard times. His catch for the season is down badly from previous years. Determined to turn things around, Billy and his crew -- Murph (John C Reilly), Sully (William Fichtner), Bugsy (John Hawkes), Alfred Pierre (Allen Payne), and rookie Bobby (Mark Wahlberg) -- elect to make one more trip, all the way out to the bountiful Flemish Cap far to the east. There, they enjoy a tremendous catch, until their ice machine breaks down.
The crew is by this time aware of the bad weather lying between them and Gloucester, but not its severity. Faced with either waiting until the storm subsides (and letting their catch spoil) or punching through it, they decide to head home. But the first hints of the storm knock out the radio, and so Billy is oblivious to the warnings of a friendly rival (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), that he is heading right into the epicentre of a meteorological powderkeg.
"The Perfect Storm" does not get off to a good start. The first half of the film moves at a glacial pace, depicting the toll that fishing takes on the crewmembers' personal lives. The problem is that none of these characters are particularly interesting; the acting, while serviceable, is uniformly unremarkable. Though a certain amount of character-building is necessary in order to involve us emotionally in the picture, it is simply overdone. Too much time is spent developing these characters (and not in particularly imaginative ways) than can be justified by the relatively insignificant and melodramatic payoff at the end.
The movie is just marking time, until the storm hits the "Andrea Gail" and the action really begins. We are therefore forced to endure contrived animosity between Murph and Sully, present for no other reason than to generate some spark during the early tedium. It says something that the most engrossing sequences of the first half have nothing to do with the "Andrea Gail" at all, but rather with a small luxury yacht, the "Mistral", sailing for the Bahamas and so caught up in the storm earlier on. The rescue of the "Mistral"'s crew by a coast guard helicopter is genuine edge-of-the-seat material. Indeed, the entire subplot involving the coast guard unit (which later tracks the "Andrea Gail") generates many of "The Perfect Storm"'s best and most heartfelt moments.
Once the "Andrea Gail" and the storm do collide, the intensity of the movie finally picks up, and I cannot deny that I enjoyed these scenes mightily. Watching Tyne and his crew struggle against nature was both an inspiring and heartrending experience: I was already well aware of their ultimate fate, but I admired their determination to get back to port. These scenes are also nicely counterpointed by tense, quiet glimpses of the fishermen's family and friends back in Gloucester, gathered at a local tavern and waiting desperately for news while the storm rages outside.
Unfortunately, while the action in the second hour is undeniably riveting, it is marred by poor production values. The computer-generated images of the "Andrea Gail" riding the towering waves are certainly impressive. But they are also very artificial: the water moves like textured jelly, and the boat is lit and outlined in a very unrealistic manner. Also off-putting are some of the onboard scenes, especially those set after dark, which are clearly shot in a water tank -- it is hard to shake the impression that the "ocean" ends about five feet off screen.
Admittedly, the power of the second half of "The Perfect Storm" is almost enough to make me forget all this. Almost. Perhaps if I hadn't been lulled into such listlessness by the first half, I would have been more easily drawn into the fiction. But "The Perfect Storm" is desperately unbalanced. The filmmakers should have taken a cue from the title that the real star is not the fishermen, but the storm itself. "The Perfect Storm" is simply a good disaster movie, in the tradition of "Twister". An excellent drama could no doubt be made about the trials of Atlantic fishermen, but "The Perfect Storm" is not that movie.
Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/ThePerfectStorm.html
_______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | shannon@mun.ca | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |
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