This film is based on a true story. It takes place in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and the Atlantic Ocean a couple hundred miles to the east, in the fall of 1991. Gloucester is your typical East coast fishing town with a harbor and a ship museum and a white-spired church. George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg star. Clooney plays a fisherman (Captain William Tyne) in a slump and Wahlberg (Bobby Shatford) plays his up-and-coming first mate. We first see them and their crew after a bunch of ships have returned from a fishing trip. Under pressure from his boss for his bad haul, Tyne decides to go back out for one last trip that season. A somewhat sappy romance between Clooney and his friendly rival female captain is revealed before he heads out for his fateful journey. A person who did not go on the first trip is recruited for the turnaround trip. The twist with him is that he has a quarrel with one of the original crewmembers. Apparently, he slept with the now-divorced original crewmember’s wife. I smell a friendship that will be formed when they are placed in a strenuous situation and have to help each other or perish. Other ties between the crew and people on land are also established during their layover on land. A chance for a new life away from the rigors of fishing for Bobby and his girlfriend (possibly his wife one day), a relationship between the divorced man and his son, and a relationship between the crewmember Bugsy and Irene, which starts just before the turnaround trip.
Their journey starts out with ideal skies, calm seas, and happy, light orchestral music in the background. Like almost every movie made today, this movie has a score that tells you when you should expect great amounts of action or a calmer atmosphere. Cut to a weather room showing storms over Sable Island, near New England, and a cyclonic system in the Atlantic over Bermuda. Cut to Bermuda where a yacht manned by some nonchalant recreational sailors is floating around. The Andrea Gail (Captain Tyne’s ship) has reached the Grand Banks part of the sea, where they lay their fishing line. They proceed to kill many swordfish. Sable Island reports 40-foot seas the next day. As the Andrea Gail’s catch dwindles it starts to rain. Then they finally get something big and it’s a shark! This has no purpose in the movie. We then see Hurricane Grace over Bermuda being flown into by a WC-130 Hurricane Hunter airplane that proclaims it to most likely be a Category 5 with winds over 140 knots. The next day the Andrea Gail’s crew has good weather. When questioned on the dwindling catch, Captain Tyne gets very adamant about his ability to find the fish. The divorced man and his enemy are getting in increasingly vicious fights, and just after he causes his enemy to spill some glow sticks on the deck, he is pulled into the water when a hook goes through his hand. Everyone else is picking up the sticks, but finally they notice he’s gone. Then the enemy saves him by jumping in and pulling him out. Cut to the little yacht, which is being pummeled by the hurricane. Cut back and a huge wave goes sideways across the Andrea Gail. It’s clear the next day, but the crew wants to go back in since their fell unlucky, what with the shark attack, the man overboard and the infighting. The captain tells them it’s time to go to the Flemish Cap – where all the fish are and all the weather is.
He talks to the captain of the Hannah Boden (his female business rival/love interest) who has a good run behind him in the Grand Bank. She says it’s bad weather there and warns him of a possible three-way weather convergence where he’s headed. Cut to a giant wave capsizing and then righting the 32 ft yacht in Bermuda. Up north, it’s a clear day in the Flemish cap and they’re catching tons of swordfish. The ice machine dies during the big haul, though, and the Captain says they’re going home. He then receives warnings of big gales and fifty-foot waves on the way back to Mass. He asks if they want to wait the storm out in the Flemish Cap and let the fish spoil or go back and make a mother lode of money. The crew decides to head back.
In the weather center, the forecaster comments that Hurricane Grace is moving north off the Atlantic Seaboard and is huge, but getting massive. A low-pressure system off Sable Island is ready to explode. Thirdly, a fresh cold front swooping down from Canada and riding the jet stream quickly into the Atlantic has been spotted. If the cold front and the hurricane collide, the Low will scrounge for energy and start feeding off the hurricane and the cold front. If this happens, he says it would be a disaster of epic proportions.
The yacht down south finally calls, “Mayday,” and the Coast Guard goes to rescue it. They expend fuel after during a few unsuccessful attempts. The Andrea Gail is then shown fighting the waves head on and surmounting them. The weather forecaster says, “Oh my god, it’s happening.” The Hannah Borden is in a storm and warns Andrea Gail of the convergence and that they’re steaming into a bomb, but is unsuccessful. The Hannah Borden warns the Coast Guard of the Andrea Gail’s problem, but they need to refuel first after getting the yachters. Waves knock out the Andrea Gail’s radio and antennae. They chopper can’t refuel in midair or on the Coast Guard ship in time, and the crew has to bail. Meanwhile a loose chain has bashed a hole in the Andrea Gail’s cabin window, and water is leaking into the hold. Attempts to repair the hole are a failure as people fall in water trying to fix it. Captain Tyne decides to turn around when he thinks they won’t be able to make it to land through the storm.
The chopper pilots who bailed are rescued by Coast Guard ship. While turning around, the Andrea Gail capsizes and then rights herself. At dawn after turning she finally sees light and the seas die down. But no, it’s only a break in the storm. Captain Tyne says, ”She’s not going to let us out.” You can guess what happens next. This film was dedicated to the ten thousand Gloucestermen who have died at sea since 1623.
The consistency of this movie was perfect. It showed the precursor storms in scenes from the weather center, from Hurricane Grace, and from the low-pressure system off Massachusetts. It also showed. The build up to the storm as the Andrea Gail’s crew felt it, from the first rain to the first big wave, to the first glimpse of the monster storm. As a movie, this was entertaining and informative as to how big seas can get, and how much courage deep-sea fishermen have to face something as powerful as the ocean. It also showed how cutthroat the fishing industry can be. If he hadn’t chosen to save face, Captain Tyne wouldn’t have had to risk his crew’s life out there. The weather lingo and situations also appeared flawless. I already mentioned everything the weatherman said, and it since it really happened, it has to be accurate. The Coast Guard choppers and boats and the hurricane hunter planes really exist and save lives like they did in the movie. I didn’t know that they also have refueling jets and commercial-sized jets that fly around in the storms relatively close to the water. For entertainment, accuracy, and information, I give this four and out of five stars.
