The Perfect Storm

Cowabunga!

(2000) True Life Drama (Warner Brothers) George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, Diane Lane, Michael Ironside, William Fichtner, John Hawkes, Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio, Bob Gunton, Karen Allen, Allen Payne, Cherry Jones, Rusty Schwimmer, Janet Wright, Christopher McDonald, Dash Mihok, Josh Hopkins, Todd Kimsey, Chris Palermo, Wiley Pickett, Hayden Tank, Merle Kennedy, Jennifer Sommerfield. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen

There is a certain romance that we landlubbers assign to the life of a fisherman. It is not an easy life, one of hard labor, patience and more often than not, frustration. Men leave their families and the comforts of home for days and weeks at a time, hoping to make a big catch that will keep them and their families heads above water when storm season makes deep sea fishing too dangerous.

The romance comes from the uncertainty of the ocean. She may be calm and give freely of her riches on one trip; the next she may give nothing but death. For the fishermen of Gloucester, Massachusetts, it’s the life they’ve known and loved since 1623. In that time, more than 10,000 men and women of Gloucester have lost their lives in the great, unmarked grave of the North Atlantic.

The skipper of the F.V. Andrea Gail, Billy Tyne (Clooney) knows the ocean and her fickle nature. One of the most respected captains in the Gloucester fishing fleet, he is in the middle of a horrible run of luck that has begun to get his crew doubting his abilities. Bob Brown (Ironside), the boat’s owner, is a bottom-line kind of guy who is thinking of replacing Tyne if he can’t get the boat to pay. Under this kind of pressure, Tyne decides to take the Andrea Gail for one last run on the Grand Banks even though it is October, and the Banks are no joke in October.

His crew, including the young, starry-eyed-in-love Bobby Shatford (Wahlberg) and the teddy bear-ish divorcee Murph (Reilly) know the risks, but are willing to follow the captain if it will mean a fat paycheck. However, as the voyage continues and the scarcity of a catch has begun to weigh heavily on their minds, Tyne decides to push for the Flemish Cap, east of the Banks and on the edge of the Andrea Gail’s range. There, they finally begin to have the kind of trip they’ve been dreaming of.

What they don’t know is that three weather fronts — a cold front from Canada, an embryonic Atlantic storm just waiting for enough energy to turn it into a monster, and Hurricane Grace, a category five storm moving north from Bermuda — are about to collide and turn the North Atlantic into a buzzsaw. And, because their radio antenna was destroyed (one of a series of mishaps that have plagued the trip), they don’t know they are headed straight into the maw of the mother of all storms.

Of course, this is the kind of script that even Hollywood screenwriters couldn’t dream up without a little help. The events of The Perfect Storm actually happened, with waves verified at over 100 feet (think of a wall of water the size of a seven-story building coming your way and you’ll get the idea).

Director Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Air Force One) captures the harshness of a fisherman’s life, as well as the courage that all fishermen must possess to brave the sometimes deadly seas. He also captures the agony of those who love them and must wait for their safe return. The people here are not wealthy or famous; they are ordinary, blue-collar folks who work hard to make ends meet (barely). They are heroic in the ways that we are heroic, struggling to make something better for our families.

The cast, which includes a nearly-skeletal Mastrantonio (how did she get so gaunt?), a too-rarely-seen Allen, Gunton and the lustrous Lane (one of my very favorite leading ladies), all give solid performances as people whose lives are changed forever because of the storm. The effects by Industrial Light and Magic are terrifying to watch as the sea’s fury grows and multiplies.

The real star of the movie is the Atlantic herself. Changeable in mood, eternal in her allure, she beckons the folk of Gloucester with a saucy wink and gentle, caressing whispers of wealth and wonder. And, like a woman, for all her beauty and charm, sooner or later she shows her volatile side. Still, I believe that not one of the 10,000 souls who went to their rest at the bottom of the sea would have traded their lives, even knowing their end, for any other. Perhaps that is the greatest mystery of all.

Da Queen lost count of her hankies for this one, so you can draw your own conclusions. The movie drags a bit during the fishing portion of the movie (think of “The Deadliest Catch” and you’ll get the drift) while the storm develops, but once it gets rolling, the tension doesn’t let up a bit. The Perfect Storm falls just short of being the perfect movie, but only JUST short.

WHY RENT THIS: Awe-inspiring effects. Gripping story. Terrific performances by Clooney and Wahlberg but in support by Lane, Reilly, Fichtner and Hawkes.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: If you’re terrified of storms this will put you into the nut house for sure.

FAMILY MATTERS: Plenty of salty language (they’re sailors after all) and some disturbing scenes of peril.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO FEATURES: The DVD and Blu-Ray have an HBO special on the making of the film as well as interviews with actual survivors of the storm, and a very moving photo montage. as well as a brief featurette on Horner’s scoring on the film.  There are also collectors editions and signature editions which include lobby cards and other non-disc extras.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $328.7M on a $140M production budget; the movie was profitable.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Day After Tomorrow

FINAL RATING: 9.5/10

NEXT: Mama

Everybody Wants to Be Italian

If you'd had five cups of coffee out of this cup, your eyes would be as wide as saucers too.

(Roadside Attractions) Jay Jablonski, Cerina Vincent, John Kapelos, John Enos III, Dan Cortese, Richard Libertini, Penny Marshall, Marisa Petroro. Directed by Jason Todd Ipson

I will admit to having a more than passing affection for Italian culture. Not only do I love the cuisine (hey, I make a wicked lasagna), but I love the sense of family and belonging that is part and parcel of being Italian. Like most non-Italians, I have a bit of an inferiority complex.

Jake Bianski (Jablonski) is not Italian. He’s Polish as a matter of fact, but he owns an Italian fish market with Italian co-workers; Papa Tempesti (Libertini), the patriarch, Gianluca Tempesti (Enos), the ladies man, and Steve Bottino (Kapelos), the amateur psychologist. Jake is single but has a thing about Isabella (Petroro), the girl he broke up with eight years before. Even though she’s married and has three kids, Jake is positive he’s meant to be with her.

Of course, his buddies have all sorts of advice for him, being the caring sorts that they are. Also being busybodies, they set Jake up at a singles club for Italians, even though he’s not Italian. There he meets Marisa Costa (Vincent), a veterinarian who is also not Italian. Both of them claim they’re Italian just to justify their presence at the dance; they wind up going on a date. At the date, stupid Jake can do nothing else but talk about Isabella. Of course, Marisa figures that the two of them are still an item.

Thus they set out to be just friends, and as it turns out, they become good friends. They’re both good people and they have a lot in common. By the time Jake figures out that he wants more than friendship with Marisa, Isabella gets back in the picture.

This is Ipson’s second feature and it’s not bad, not really. Sure, it has loads of romantic comedy clichés and certainly the humor is uneven but there is a kind of offbeat Italian charm to it that kept my interest. There is a surfeit of Quirky Indie Characters to keep the filmmakers indie cred, but I can live with that.

The main leads – Jablonski and Vincent – have enough charisma and chemistry to keep the rooting interest alive. One of the big problems with romantic comedies is that often the leads are cast either because of their notoriety or because of their look. Here, it appears that Ipson tried to put two actors together who worked well together, and their relationship becomes believable; thus as the film progresses you want them to be together.

Does this pander to Italian stereotypes? The answer is yes to a large degree, but it’s never in an offensive way. These aren’t goombahs (at least to my way of thinking) but the kind of Italian you’d find in South Boston; abrasive but with a heart of gold. Nobody shoots anybody and to be honest, I loved spending time with these people, even the non-Italians.

Because the script doesn’t really go too far beyond what I would consider the standard romantic comedy fare, I had to give this a lower ranking than I might have ordinarily. I would have liked the filmmakers to go beyond the stereotypical romantic comedy situations and maybe used their ethnic choices more to their advantage. That worked wonders for Moonstruck. As it is, this isn’t My Big Fat Greek Wedding so much as it is My Big Dumb Italian Courtship. And, as we all know, the Italians are far more expert at love than the protagonists here. Don’t believe me? Get thee to Venice unbeliever!

WHY RENT THIS: There is a good deal of offbeat charm to the movie.   

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The humor quotient is a bit uneven and the romantic clichés fall a bit thick and fast.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s some sexuality and a good deal of sex talk, making this a little bit much for the younger set.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Cerina Vincent went from playing the Yellow Power Ranger on television to becoming a scream queen in movies like Cabin Fever.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: The audition tapes for some of the lead actors are there for the perusing.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Changeling