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Director:
- Wolfgang Petersen
(Air Force One, Das Boot, Enemy Mine, In The Life Of Fire, Outbreak, The Perfect Storm, Shattered)
Producers:
- Paula Weinstein, Wolfgang Petersen and Gail Katz
Screenplay:
- Bill Wittliff
Music :
- James Horner
Cast:
- Captain Billy Tyne: George Clooney
Bobby Shatford: Mark Wahlberg
Christina “Chris” Cotter: Diane Lane
Melissa Brown: Karen Allen
David “Sully” Sullivan: William Fichtner
Alexander McAnally III, Owner of Sailboat Melissa: Bob Gunton
Linda Greenlaw: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Dale “Murph” Murphy: John C. Reilly
Alfred Pierre: Allen Payne
Mike “Bugsy” Moran: John Hawkes
Todd Gross, Channel 9 TV Meteorologist: Christopher McDonald
Sergeant Jeremy Mitchell: Dash Mihok
Bob Brown: Michael Ironside
The Perfect Stormis the name given by Todd Gross, Channel 9 TV Meteorologist (ChristopherMcDonald) to the weather outside that no-one had ever seen before October1991 and it’s one that’s due to prove fatal to the six-strong fishermen crew of theAndrea Gail. No, I’m not spoiling the film by stating that they die – it’sbased on a true story, so I knew they would all end up brown bread beforeI pressed ‘play’.
Captain Billy Tyne (George Clooney) just isn’t pulling in the numbersthese days, with his latest catch being the smallest number of fish hauledin one go. Failing to accept he’s on the scrapheap, he wants to prove himselfto the boat’s owner – Bob Brown (Michael Ironside) – and sets outagain for another crack at the waves two days later with rookie Bobby Shatford(Mark Wahlberg), Alfred Pierre (Allen Payne), Mike “Bugsy”Moran (John Hawkes) and warring colleagues David “Sully” Sullivan(William Fichtner) and Dale “Murph” Murphy (John C. Reilly).
Diane Lane plays Bobby’s other half, Christina “Chris” Cotter, but is givencliched lines like, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”, while moviestalwarts Karen Allen and Bob Gunton only get to flail abouton the Melissa and get rescued, eventually, so it hardly stretches them.
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio has an equally vacant role as another boatowner who only seems to chat to Billy via CB radio, but they’re made out tobe the couple that would get together were Billy not to end up sleeping withthe fishes.
In fact, there’s too many cast members around so hardly anyone gets todo anything memorable. All the people at home do it sit and mope about, while the characters aren’t fleshed out enough to make us want to care about theirfate. Add to this the fact that, as no-one made it off the Andrea Gail alive,everything that happens on the boat is pure conjecture. Was Bobby the lastone alive? Did Captain Billy elect to go down with the ship? Who knows?More importantly, you just don’t feel bothered when it happens.
The sea and the storm are the best thing onscreen and undoubtedly thesespecial effects are excellent, but there’s only so long you can watch boatsbeing tossed about in the waves before it becomes boring. One of the bestsuch moments, though, comes about when the rescue chopper is helping out theoccupants of the aforementioned Melissa, as the chopper just clips the seasurface.
The DVD is presented in its original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and is anamorphic.It looks fantastic and perfectly replicates the special effects blasting out atyou.The average bitrate is 6.38Mb/s, often peaking over 8Mb/s.
At the cinema, the film was presented in Dolby Digital 6.1 EX, but while thisDVD contains a 5.1 EX soundmix (in English and German), how many people actually have the centre-rearmatrixed speaker? Either way, the room is filled with the sound of the terrorof the waves and it rarely lets up in the final hour.
Extras :Excellent sound and picture are topped off with a superb array of extras.
A list of the Cast and Crew just saves a trip to the end credits ofthe film, while the three featurettes, HBO First Look Special: Creatingthe Perfect Storm, Witnesses to the Storm and Creating an Emotiontotal 29 minutes of footage that takes in cast and crew interviews, plus chatfrom real Gloucester swordfishermen and those that saw the storm and composerJames Horner‘s thoughts on the film.
There’s an 80-second Theatrical Trailer, in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen,a four-minute “Yours Forever” Photo Montage that combines the closing theme tunewith stills from the film and soundbites from the film, a Storyboard Gallerywith 239 stills, a Conceptual Art Gallery with director’s commentaryover the top and a Soundtrack Promo which is just a trailer for thesoundtrack album.
More information comes courtesy of the 2 feature-length AudioCommentaries, one from director Wolfgang Petersen and one fromthe author of the book from which the screenplay was derived, SebastianJunger. The DVD ROM content provides a link to the film’s websiteatPerfect Storm.netand contains Previsualising the Storm, a gallery of craftmini-documentaries and Virtual Theatre, synchronous online screeningsand other web events to be announced.
Warner have provided a treat in terms of chapters with a massive 39 spreadacross the film and subtitles are available in English, German, Swedish,Norwegian, Danish, Finnish and Icelandic, with the first two also having ahard-of-hearing option.
The main menu has some sound and subtle animation of looking out through awindow, while the rest are silent and static.
Overall, if you enjoyed the film then this DVD is a must-buy. The pictureand sound are unsurpassable and there’s stacks of extras.
Personally though, before I watched this I couldn’t see what there was towrite about that was factually correct AND entertaining about six men whogo out on a boat to catch fish and don’t come back – and I was proved right.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALLVisit the offical website at :Perfect Storm.net
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.