The Perfect Storm - Film review

The Perfect Storm
Starring: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg
Directed by: Wolfgang Petersen

Make sure you bring your seasickness pills with you when you watch this turbulent sea drama, a howling marine catastrophe that makes Titanic look like a leisurely abra ride down the Creek. There's water, water everywhere as Neptune's great oceans conspire to teach a signal lesson to that upstart humanity that dares to sail on them.
The tiny port of Gloucester, Massachusetts, has lost 10,000 of its fishermen to watery graves since fishing began there in the 17th century. This film is based on a true story of one of those bad years, 1991, which saw the Storm of the Century. All the characters are based on real people.
It is the end of October, and skipper Billy Tyne (Clooney) has just sailed crestfallen into Gloucester with a paltry catch, the final straw in a run of bad luck in which the fish have eluded him. He decides to make one more trip, against all advice – the Grand Banks in October can cut up rough. His crew are reluctant at first, but they need the money. Who knows? – the big catch could be just over the next wave.
After a couple of nights in the tavern on the quay during which we are introduced to the crew and their love interest, the Andrea Gail goes steaming out of Gloucester, weatherbeaten and pockmarked with rust following a punishing season on the Grand Banks.
We follow them through a series of lean catches, during which tension mounts among the crew. Two of them, 'Murph' Murphy (John C. Reilly) an old hand trying to support his estranged wife and child, and Sully, a last minute replacement for one man who had the good sense to stay ashore, are at each other's throats for most of the first half of the film. But the sea, and shared danger, slowly melts the animosity between them.
In fact, the sea is really the primary character here. And what better director to honour it than Wolfgang Petersen. Anyone who saw his superb Das Boot (The Boat) which followed the fortunes of a German U-boat crew in World War II, will know the subtle love-hate relationship he can weave around the majesty and treachery of the ocean.
Petersen builds up a convincing picture of this rare breed of men who risk their lives for fish, the only food that modern man still goes out to hunt in any quantity. If the Andrea Gail had been just a trawler throwing down nets and hauling up every species of fish by the tonne, the film would have been pretty dull in the pre-storm sequences. But the fishermen and women of Gloucester specialise in the giant swordfish, which they hook on a line. So it is dramatic hand-to-hand combat, excellently filmed in close up.
With still no luck, skipper Tyne talks the crew into venturing beyond the Grand Banks, right out into the Atlantic to an area called the Flemish Cap, where fish are known to be plentiful. "Why don't we just go steaming right on to Portugal?" cries one anguished crew member. Nevertheless, they head further out into the ocean.
But...
Down around Bermuda, a low pressure system, hurricane Grace, is wreaking havoc, inching her way north west. Not an immediate threat to the Andrea Gail, though.
But...
Rushing down from the north is a high pressure icy blast of Arctic air. Again, nothing to worry the Andrea Gail unduly.
But...
Sweeping across from the Great Lakes at high altitude is the continental jetstream. Still, no business of the Andrea Gail's.
But...
What if the three weather systems were to collide?
They do, they do. And the result of this unholy matrimony is a meteorologist's nightmare – The Perfect Storm, a swirling maelstrom of 120 mph winds and 100-foot waves.
Meanwhile, out on the Flemish Cap, the Andrea Gail is having a dilly of a time, hauling in vast quantities of fish. Then their ice machine breaks down. They need to return to port before the fish spoil. They know there is a storm between them and home, but they don't know the vast proportions of it. It appears their weather fax was not working.
Quandary: Sit it out and lose the fish... or try to get through the storm?
The dollar signs in their eyes win out, so into the jaws of the Perfect Storm they go.
This is when the movie really kicks in, and the special effects go overboard, so to speak.
Mountains of water on the move with devastating force in a black night, tearing at the vessel and ripping her apart piece by piece. The effects, of course, are largely computer generated, and the action mostly shot in the studio. But you can't see the join, and there is a genuine overall feeling of being there.
There is no respite from the action, and why should there be, with something as unremitting as the angry ocean. In fact, just whenever we think we are due a breather from the trials of Mr. Clooney and his crew, we cut back and forth to another intense drama being played out simultaneously – the rescue of three people on a stricken yacht by a coast guard helicopter crew. The 'copter then bravely sets off in search of the Andrea Gail, hoping to refuel in mid-air. Alas, the weather prevents it and they run out of fuel and have to ditch into the frothing cauldron below.
This rescue operation results in a bizarre, totally out of place sequence which is the only breather you will get from the gripping action. The helicopter rescue crewman jumps into the swell of mountainous water, where the helpless survivors are swirling around like bobbing ants about to disappear down a plug hole. He manages to reach one... and, yelling above the howling wind, proceeds to formally introduce himself, like a tour guide.
You know the type: "Hello, my name's Mandy, and I'm your facilitator for today. I hope you'll enjoy your time with us. We surely will with you... "
It's difficult to work out if this is A: A joke on the part of the rescuer. B: Standard coast guard regulations. C: An attempt to lighten the stress on the audience who by this time have been emotionally battered.
Even when we return from time to time to Gloucester, where their loved ones wait for news, emotion is stretched to breaking point.
George Clooney is convincing as the gruff, unshaven, driven skipper with his dark brooding eyebrows, and Mark Wahlberg is a good counterpoint as the rookie who looks up to him. But characters are not fully fleshed out in this piece. Not much point really, when they are totally eclipsed by the most demanding leading lady imaginable... the tempestuous, unforgiving ocean.