SnoopyStyle
It's 1960. Chuck Gieg (Scott Wolf) decides to attend school on sailing vessel Albatross instead of going to an Ivy League school. He joins other boys like rich kid Frank Beaumont (Jeremy Sisto), fearful Gil Martin (Ryan Phillippe) and Dean Preston (Eric Michael Cole) who struggles with school. The ship is run by skipper Sheldon (Jeff Bridges), his wife Dr. Alice Sheldon (Caroline Goodall) and McCrea (John Savage). The skipper intends to make the boys ship shape as they sail around in the Caribbeans.I don't really feel for any of the kids. There are just so many of them and everybody has their problems. It gets bog down with their melodrama. It's too long. Jeff Bridges is powerful. I wonder if the drama would be more compelling if the movie starts with the ship in the storm and then flash backs to the beginning. Around midway, the drama tries to pump up the tension but I never feel for them. The storm scenes look well made.
jsneider
If your tastes in movies are like so many audiences that like movies that are loaded with sex and violence, you won't like White Squall. That is the only reason I can think of why this movie failed at the box office. It is just too truthful and too full of real life experiences. Young men everywhere can learn from this story.Really fun to watch now as most of the cast of young boys on the Ship are mega stars now. The story is a true one and I know many young men would love the opportunity to do what they did spending their Senior HS year on a working ship.The bonds they form are a little cliché but the emotions seem real. Very well cast. Bridges looks his best and Ms. Goodall is believable as his trusted wife.I did not realize it was a Ridley Scott movie until the second time I watched. The scenery/camera work is amazing, the story is sound and it takes you full circle.
wes-connors
Mystic, Connecticut high school student Scott Wolf (as Charles "Chuck" Gieg) goes to sea for his 1960-61 senior year. He joins the crew of "Skipper" Jeff Bridges (as Christopher Sheldon) on the amusingly named ship "Albatross". While not acknowledged in the script as such, the name turns out to be a bad omen. Of course, you knew that going in. There are teachers on board, but the real lesson is adventure on the high seas. This is where boys become men. They fight, cry and study together. They bond while smoking, drinking and taking penicillin shots for venereal disease...Our narrator and star is Mr. Wolf, who gained popularity as a small screen look-alike for Tom Cruise on the TV series "Party of Five" (1994). Top-billed co-star Mr. Bridges gained his sea legs on his famous father's syndicated series "Sea Hunt" (1958)...Wolf and the "boys" look more like "male model" college graduates than high school teenagers. They have shaved chests, plucked eyebrows, pouty lips, and perfectly trimmed hair. Wolf is first drawn to boyish Ryan Phillippe (as Gil Martin), who clings to a picture of his dead brother and has a fear of heights. Made obvious for his lateness and snobbery is Jeremy Sisto (as Frank Beaumont). He commits a despicable act due to domineering daddy David Selby (as Francis Beaumont). In a lesser storyline, initially obnoxious Eric Michael Cole (as Dean Preston) goes to the head of the class...This is based on a true story. Having age appropriate actors play the parts might have made some of the behavior look more inappropriate; herein, they appear trimmed, tempered and tamed. The photography, by Hugh Johnson, is a strength.****** White Squall (2/2/96) Ridley Scott ~ Scott Wolf, Jeff Bridges, Ryan Phillippe, Jeremy Sisto
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!
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