Taglines: The storm is coming.
The Perfect Storm movie storyline. Billy Tyne is a sword-fishing-boat captain out of Gloucester, highly competitive and stung by a string of poor outings. His crew is hardly back in port when he tells them he’s going out again, even though it’s October and the weather can turn ugly.
Five join him: the young Bobby, newly in love; Murph, a devoted father recently divorced; Sully, a guy Murph despises; Bugsy, who’s finally met a woman who likes him; and Alfred, a quiet Jamaican. They catch little, so they sail east, with Tyne ignoring storm warnings behind him. Finally, the fish bite, but the ice machine fails. Should they head home through the storm of the century, or wait it out and lose their catch? Fearful, the women wait.
The Perfect Storm is a 2000 American biographical disaster drama film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and based on the 1997 non-fiction book of the same name by Sebastian Junger. The film tells the story of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing vessel that was lost at sea with all hands after being caught in the Perfect Storm of 1991. The film stars George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, William Fichtner, John C. Reilly, Diane Lane, Karen Allen and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. It was released on June 30, 2000, by Warner Bros. Pictures.
About the Story
In October 1991, the commercial fishing boat Andrea Gail returns to port in Gloucester, Massachusetts, with a poor catch. Desperate for money, Captain Billy Tyne (Clooney) convinces the Andrea Gail crew to join him for one more late season fishing expedition. The crew heads out past their usual fishing grounds in the Grand Banks, leaving a developing thunderstorm behind them.
Initially unsuccessful, they head to the Flemish Cap, where their luck greatly improves. At the height of their fishing the ice machine breaks; the only way to sell their catch before it spoils is to hurry back to shore. After debating whether to sail through the building storm or to wait it out, the crew decides to risk the storm. However, between the Andrea Gail and Gloucester is a confluence of two powerful weather fronts and a hurricane, which the Andrea Gail crew underestimates.
After repeated warnings from other ships, Andrea Gail loses her antenna, forcing Captain Linda Greenlaw (Mastrantonio) of sister ship Hannah Boden to call in a Mayday. A New York Air National Guard HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopter responds, but after failing to perform a midair refueling with an HC-130 Hercules, the helicopter crew ditch their aircraft. All but one of the Air National Guard crew members are rescued by a Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Tamaroa.
After Andrea Gail endures various problems, the crew struggles to sail through pounding waves and shrieking winds, while friends and family worry and wait for a ship that never comes home. The vessel encounters an enormous rogue wave. They attempt to drive the boat over the wave but it crests before it can get to the top and is overturned; Billy elects to go down with his ship, the rest of the crew are trapped inside and only one manages to get out. He surfaces and watches as the Andrea Gail rights itself before sinking stern-first into the Atlantic. The rapidly rising swell carries the man away.
The Perfect Storm (2000)
Directed by: Wolfgang Petersen
Starring: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Diane Lane, William Fitchner, Karen Allen, John C. Reilly, Bob Gunton, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Rusty Schwimmer
Screenplay by: Bill Wittliff
Production Design by: William Sandell
Cinematography by: John Seale
Film Editing by: Richard Francis-Bruce
Costume Design by: Erica Edell Phillips
Set Decoration by: Ernie Bishop
Art Direction by: Chas. Butcher, Bruce Crone
Music by: James Horner
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language and scenes of peril.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: June 30, 2000
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