12 Best Natural Disaster Movies Of All Time
6. Storm - The Perfect Storm
This 'based on a true story' account of the fateful travails of the fishing boat Andrea Gail and its crew is definitely entertaining, if not the in depth character study it attempts to be. We are taken to the seaside village of Gloucester, Massachusetts, where 'evil' boat owner Bob Brown is busily being evil, taunting the skipper of his boat for not bringing in enough fish.
Seemingly reacting to these taunts, skipper 'Billy' Tyne, portrayed in grumpy fashion by George Clooney, convinces his crew to take to the seas one more time. When the boat's freezing equipment fails, Tyne and crew decide to take the direct route home, travelling through the middle of a ferocious 'once in a century' storm event to do so.
Attempts to have us buy into the various character dynamics of the Andrea Gail crew works intermittently, with Wahlberg struggling to break his Marky Mark persona as 'Bobby' Shatford, while William Fitchner steals every scene as divisive new crew member 'Sully'.
The film pulls a fast one on us, with the crew looking like they may somehow survive their tumultuous journey, until the weather turns a little too nice. The sequence of the Andrea Gail within the eye of the storm is almost as captivating as the 'rogue wave' scene that frequented the trailers and advertising material. And for those who didn't realise how the real life events ended, the concluding scenes came as a mighty big shock.