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Slow building storm
by CarlosC (movies profile)
Apr 9, 2008
14
of
16 people found this review helpful
Fishing boat captain Billy Tyne (George Clooney) was contented in life. "The fog's just lifting," he daydreams. "Throw off your bow line, throw off your stern. You head out the South Channel, past Rocky Neck, Ten Pound Island. Past Niles Pond, where I skated as a kid. Blow your airhorn and throw a wave to the lighthouse keeper's kid on Thatcher Island. The sun hits ya. Ya know what? You're a goddamn swordboat captain! Is there anything better in the world?"...Then, you head out to sea and unsuspectingly sail into three converging storms that merge into a titanic super-storm of historic proportions.
Based on real-life events that occurred in Halloween of 1991, in and around a fishing village in Gloucester, Mass., and on a book about the events by Sebastian Junger, THE PERFECT STORM precariously tilts between a bombastic special effects blow-out and calculated social commentary, with the drama of human tragedy to boot. The picture starts as a still life portrait of the landlocked lives of the fishermen, and the economic despair that leads them to toss themselves into the tempest. The night before they sail to scrape one last desperate net through the waters to make payroll, the crew drinks hard at a bar to the dismal lyrics of Bruce Springsteen's "Hungry Heart" ("I went out for a ride and I never went back," the lyric laments, "Like a river that don't know where it's flowing").
It's fair to say that THE PERFECT STORM is two good movies for the price of one: a seaworthy drama, and an even more airtight thriller. There's an incident with a shark and a man overboard but, for the most part, the plot is mundane enough: cash strapped fishermen take their vessel out to sea one more time, pushing the envelope of safety in light of the weather. When they get to their designated fishing spot, they find the fishing to be slim pickins' and, in growing desperation, they set out toward the Flemish Cap, a place worthy of its exotic name. When they get there, the fishing's great, but their ice machine breaks down, meaning that their bountiful catch will spoil if they don't turn home at once. Enter the storm. Exactly in front of them. And stir.
The calm before the STORM may jar viewers who just want to see George Clooney get wet and Mark Wahlberg slapped around by seventy foot waves. The prolonged quiet reminded me of the dynamic of JAWS (1975), another seagoing film that builds to a fever pitch from relative chatty and melodramatic start. Clearly, PERFECT STORM is not "perfect": it's not as mean and streamlined as JAWS. However, James Horner's brassy soundtrack helps. The storm sequence is not only thrilling but, according to a documentary currently playing on the Discovery Channel (called simply "The Storm"), dead-on in terms of accuracy.
(Carlos Colorado) |
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