Wuchak Released in early 1996 and directed by Ridley Scott, "White Squall" is a drama/adventure based on a true story about a group of American teenage boys who crew a sailing ship and discover discipline, adventure, courage, camaraderie, babes and the worst this world has to offer. Jeff Bridges stars as the captain, Caroline Goodall as his physician wife, John Savage as a teacher and Julio Oscar Mechoso as the cook. The main protagonist and narrator, Chuck Gieg, is played by Chris Wolf. Other teens are played by Ryan Phillippe, Jeremy Sisto, et al. (I'd name more but they're mostly so nondescript I can't remember 'em).While "White Squall" tries to be "Dead Poets Society" on the high seas it somehow doesn't click like that movie and is therefore a mixed bag, which explains why it bombed at the box office. I love the adventure-on-a-sailing-ship plot and there are some bright spots, but the script has a hard time pulling you into the story; and the characters and their situations are often too contrived to be engaging. The Shakespeare-spouting English teacher is a good example, not to mention practically any scene involving the boys. I know the screenplay was based on Chuck Gieg's book, but the producers needed a screenwriter with a creative spark who knew how to write compelling drama, like Tom Schulman.The best part of the movie is the titular storm and the shocking events thereof, which effectively perks the movie out of the general doldrums of the first two acts. Unfortunately, this thrilling sequence is a bit marred by the artificial melodramatics of the closing court room scene. The bell-ringing part is particularly eye-rolling (which is in contrast to the potent "O Captain! My Captain!" scene in "Dead Poets"). Nonetheless, "White Squall" is worth checking out if you enjoy adventure-on-the-high-seas, with the storm sequence being worth the price of admission.The movie runs 129 minutes and was shot in Malta, Bermuda, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, South Carolina, Georgia and England.GRADE: C+ (5.5/10 Stars)

Armand it is far to be original. or one of great films. it is decent. and, maybe, for a part of its public, useful, touching and a form of lesson about life with few pink ingredients. it could be a good occasion to discover few actors at young age or Jeff Bridges in a bitter role but, in same measure, to remind old fashion values and few cultural references, the spirit of teenagers and a good guide who transforms theirs in men. it reminds many other films about the same theme but the manner is almost a virtue. because it is a right work, with not the best end but the tension, the drops of soap opera, the pieces from the epics about the man against nature, the importance of duty and the metamorphose in contact with a great challenge are the solid good points.

Catharina_Sweden This could have been a very good movie. "To Sir with Love" meets a disaster movie! :-) But something with the timing and pacing is not right. The movie is too long - or rather: it has not got enough action to fill up more than two hours. Someone should have tightened it up.Also, I cannot really decide if I like the Captain or not. He was quite irresponsible and sometimes too hard. As when he forced the boy who was afraid of heights to climb the mast in front of all the other boys, and when he expelled a boy "only" for using a harpoon on a dolphin. It would have been funnier if one could have admired the Captain whole-heartedly! I do not think that the boys developed enough either - and that is the "point" with this kind of super teacher-versus-wild kids movie. At least you were not allowed to see enough of this development, or the result of it.Another problem was that several of the boys looked a lot alike so that it was difficult to keep them apart. (Or maybe it is a sign of my getting old, that I think that all young people look the same! :-) ) I also think it would have been enough if only two or three of the boys had been presented in detail, with their respective characters, backgrounds, personal problems, and development. The rest of them could all have been small bit parts, "foil". Now there was too much to remember about them, and trying to keep them apart, in just a feature film. If it had been a long TV series it would have been different - then you would have had time to take it all in.Still, this movie is quite good enough to watch at home with your older children/teenagers on a rainy day!

jzappa Herd a crew of fledgling white guys, apportion good and bad characteristics among them, and have them learn through tough examples that it is best to stick together and adhere to command. Women provide a supplementary function. The intrinsic outlook of the movie is that boys grow up to be men who do cool things together and then go out on Saturday night looking for compliant enough girls.Nearly all movies in this genre have one kid with a wealthy, contemptible father who appears without notice, humiliating his son and requiring unreasonable things of him. And also a kid with a closeted neurotic fear. And a kid who is fearful that he doesn't have what it takes. All such characters feature here, although they are a little hard to tell apart since, rather than conveniently button-down casting, Scott has furnished the posse with brawny, sun-tanned young sorts with contour haircuts who seem like they hang out in Dockers ads. The dubious altruistic goal, the arbitrary crew members and the mandatory array of particular conflicts keep the movie from zooming in more on individual characters and the objective of cultivating superjock confederates. Nevertheless, there are some fine qualities to this film. There is the dimension of the ship itself, the more often than not opulent cinematography, the sumptuous atmosphere of release over nights in port, and the storm sequence near the end.The most powerful sequence though is one that obliges more respect than the movie surrounding it. It is the death of a dolphin at the hands of one of the shipmates. We understand this boy's need to inflict violence in the state of mind to which he's been driven, but Scott lets us know full well how bewildered and betrayed the dolphin feels, one moment playing with the other shipmates and the next being put out of its misery on the dry deck of a ship as its family flees the unpredictable humans. It is an extremely difficult scene to watch, but it is a deeply honorable one, because it brings out the truly humanistic sides of the characters and us, the audience, when confronting the reality of the truly benign maligned.As for the storm I will not say much, save to note that the title refers to a sudden and violent windstorm phenomenon at sea which is not accompanied by the black clouds generally characteristic of a windstorm, but instead white-capped waves and broken water, a meager warning to any unfortunate seafarer caught in its path. And so it does, in storm footage of extravagant wrath, and of the true dwarfing effect the sea has on any man-made power. Indeed, the man-made consequence of the storm is a trial presided over by the Coast Guard, at which sides are taken and diatribes are performed that will ring quite common to anyone who remembers the main feature of most any late '80s-90s mainstream American movie.Scott's anamorphically shot sailing film could have been wiser and more personal in the way it develops its characters. Its inherent ideals are preferable the less you contemplate them. However, I enjoyed the movie for the headlong visceral vitality and unexpected, almost incongruous humanism of its adventure.