The Perfect Storm
Directed by Wolfgang Peterson
Starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly

        Wolfgang Peterson gained worldwide acclaim and a career in Hollywood for his 1982 masterpiece Das Boot(The Boat), a German submarine film.   Nearly twenty years later, he returns to the water, this time on the ocean’s surface for a look at a doomed fishing boat caught in the “storm of the century”.  To use a bad analogy: when underwater the director floats while atop the waves he sinks. 
       The movie takes place in 1991 with a swordfish boat named Andrea Gail.  Andrea is a victim of traditional sexism.   Her owner won’t spend money on her or take care of her, as he is a representation of greed and can be nothing else.  He is of course blamed for Andrea’s crew getting stuck in the worst nor’easter ever seen because he obviously predicted the storm and because the men on board couldn’t possibly be thinking for themselves. 
       Andrea’s captain is George Clooney, a sea-lover in the Hemingway tradition who either really finds his home on the ship or wants to prove himself to the owner and the female captain (Mary Elizabeth Mastroiani) who has become the better fish catcher.   Can’t have a woman getting all the business; this is a man’s job!  Joining him as ‘the rookie’ is Clooney’s Desert Storm buddy-porn-star-white-rapper “Marky Mark” Wahlberg who leaves behind a beautiful wife (Diane Lane) who he loves almost as much as his stubborn need to support her well.  Wahlberg’s Boogie Nights co-porn-star, John C. Reilly, plays the burly veteran who wishes to be a hero to the son he has with an ex-wife.  Rounding out her crew are three guys who are shown to have even less background character development (William Fichtner, John Hawkes, and Allen Payne). 
       I am at a theory that William D. Wittliff thought of cashing in more on the success of Titanic than Sebastian Junger’s best-selling book.  Taking a story about a bunch of people and their tragic boat ride, giving them the cheesiest dialogue possible, and putting them against an astonishing storm for that special-effects driven attraction that worked so well for “Twister”, he got to end with a sappy tribute to those who lost their lives for being so stupid.   It didn’t help thinking back to the trailer shown before-hand for next years blockbuster Pearl Harbor which I’m betting had the same Xeroxed treatment involved.
       For movies so horrible, I don’t mind ruining the ending.   The entire crew dies after they decide to face the “storm of the century” rather than letting their catch spoil. 
                 What bothers me most is that everyone dies in about the last few minutes of this two-hour-plus waste of time.  Since there were no survivors, couldn’t they have had a little more fun with killing these guys off?  Maybe every twenty minutes, instead of having me watch gallons of water being splashed all over causing my bladder to start a knife-fight with my brain, they could have killed each character one by one as if Mother Nature was some type of super slasher villain like Jason Vorhees.
      On top of my hit-list for this poor excuse for the 4-star film it thinks itself to be is the suspension of disbelief it expects us to employ.  This year alone I have seen Tom Cruise rock climb without any type of safety tools.  I saw Nicholas Cage fly a stolen sports car over stalled traffic on a suspension bridge.   I saw Bill Murray reciting Shakespeare.   But I have to draw the line when a movie expects me to believe that when a lonely drunk fisherman looking for an easy lay with a fat woman-one who doesn’t seem to be so desparate to oblige-will later think of herself as having been so close to this man that she ends up crying in the company of real family members watching the tragedy unfold.    I’m not sure this film could have been even more sexist if it starred Andrew Dice Clay.