Blast from the Past - The Perfect Storm

starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg
written by William D Wittliff (based on the book by Sebastien Junger)
directed by Wolfgang Petersen

review by Mr. Blunderson

A better name might be "the perfect waste of a morning," this was one of those situations where a Sunday morning malaise led to getting sucked into watching something I normally wouldn't. The Perfect Storm opens with the a title card that says "based on actual events," even though the movie itself is mostly full of conjecture and speculation in the case of the fishing boat Andrea Gail. This has a lot to do with why I initially steered clear of the film. At the time I would have rather seen a movie that focused more on the heroes in the Coast Guard who risked their lives to rescue those caught in the storm.


Nearly 8 years later I realize that I was simply spared the agony of melodramatic dialog and cliche that would make your garden variety day-time soap look like Citizen Kane. I have a lot of respect for Wolfgang Petersen but most of that rides on the strength of Das Boot which is a great film. Here, Petersen delivers when the action is on screen but the rest feels like forced sentimentality, and I find that hard to forgive. I realize this is a sad story, but you have to earn those sentimental moments with lines better than "I have a bad feeling about this one," and "We gonna make it, Skip?"

The real life tragedy of the 1991 Halloween Nor'easter is not lost on me, but I can't help but feel as though the dead could have been delivered a more fitting remembrance.

If you enjoyed this movie I won't hold it against you. As for me, I am going to continue to trust my instincts when it comes to movies.

added after the post - I forgot to mention the score by James Horner sounded like outtakes from the Apollo 13 music, same guy, same instrumentation, not through the whole but there were moments that all I could think of was Apollo 13 and for a movie that fudged the facts on a historical incident, was executed in a superior manner.

As a youngster there were two things I had a passion for, dinosaurs and the United States Space Program. Apollo 13 is one of my favorite movies and rises above the historical inaccuracies. It really can be done, folks, I swear!