# Perfect Storm, The (2000)

### reviewed by
Scott Renshaw

THE PERFECT STORM (Warner Bros.) Starring: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Diane Lane, John C. Reilly, William Fichtner, John Hawkes, Allen Payne, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Screenplay: Bill Wittliff, based on the book by Sebastian Junger. Producers: Paula Weinstein, Wolfgang Petersen and Gail Katz. Director: Wolfgang Petersen. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (profanity, adult themes, violence) Running Time: 136 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

The amazing thing about Sebastian Junger's best-selling non-fiction book THE PERFECT STORM was that it created an enthralling, page-turning story out of two less-than-pulse-pounding subjects: fishing and weather. Even more surprising, perhaps, was the manner in which he chose to make those subjects readable. Rather than creating a de facto novel about the people involved in the events, Junger dives into journalistic detail. He immerses the reader so completely in the hard lives of swordfishermen as a culture that it's never necessary for him to over-dramatize the individual lives he's focusing on. As for the weather, he is similarly successful at creating specifics out of generalities. For Junger, tension and adventure came from the simple facts.

Screenwriter Bill Wittliff, in adapting THE PERFECT STORM, did not choose journalistic detail. Instead, he chose melodramatic twaddle. The time is October 1991, and the Gloucester, Mass. swordfishing boat Andrea Gail has just returned to port with a less-than-stellar catch, leading Captain Billy Tyne (George Clooney) to attempt one more run before the season ends. Fishing the Grand Banks is dangerous in the late fall, but Tyne and his five crewmen -- including relative newcomer Bobby Shatford (Mark Wahlberg) -- head into the tricky waters anyway. Little do they know that a hurricane is brewing near Bermuda, and that it's heading straight for two other East Coast weather systems. An unlikely confluence of events finds the Andrea Gail ready to head home just as the three systems collide, stranding them at sea in the middle of a once-in-a-century maelstrom.

It's not an easy job Wittliff has taken on, because there's no obvious through-line for Junger's account to take as a screen story. Wittliff anchors his script with the relationship between Bobby and his loving girlfriend Christina (Diane Lane), with token attention to the personal lives of other Andrea Gail crew members like divorced Murph (John C. Reilly) and romantically inept Bugsy (John Hawkes). The book effectively conveyed the personal and physical toll exacted by a fisherman's life, and for a while it appears that Wittliff is pointing the story in the right direction. He sets up Tyne's recent run of hard luck, a run he fears may cost him his boat if he doesn't pull in a big haul this time around; he sets up Bobby's conflict over whether he can give up fishing to settle down with Christina. THE PERFECT STORM could have been set up as a seafaring TWISTER, with stick figure characters wrapped in cool meteorological special effects. This film, at least, has its heart in the right place.

Its dialogue, however, could not be more wrong, wrong, wrong. Perhaps panicked over how to make a journalistic account "engaging" for viewers, the makers of THE PERFECT STORM apparently gave Bill Wittliff the following instructions for writing his characters: "Imagine a particularly bad romance novel with a $100 million budget." The people in THE PERFECT STORM talk to each other like no human beings on the planet have ever spoken to each other, let alone the taciturn folk of a New England fishing town. They say things like, "There's only love;" they say things like, "You're heading right into the mouth of the monster!;" a rescue jumper screams "Jonesy!" into the storm after a fallen comrade. For all the verisimilitude Wittliff pumps into the conversations, the fishermen might as well have spent two hours growling "Arrgh, matey" to one another.

If not for the thrillingly staged final hour, THE PERFECT STORM might have been a total loss. As it stands, it's just on the border of worth a look. Director Wolfgang Petersen stages the Andrea Gail's perilous journey with the kind of tension that finds you pulling yourself into a ball in your seat; there's also a strangely effective scene involving a mid-air refueling attempt for a rescue helicopter thwarted by the intense winds. It's purely visceral film-making, mind you, but it's very good visceral film-making, and at least you don't have to worry about listening to the next ridiculous thing to come out of someone's mouth. It's ironic, because THE PERFECT STORM had the potential to be a powerfully human story in spite of showy visual effects and adventure set pieces. Instead, it's only worth watching for its visual effects and adventure set pieces. The storm itself is perfect; the purple prose journey towards that storm makes you long for a bit more journalistic distance. Or at least for someone to fiddle with the sound mix so the wind drowned out every word.

         On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 hurricane farces:  5.

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