5/5 Worth owning for sure.
  by Nina M. Osier (Augusta, ME USA)
After seeing this in the theater when it was first released, I hesitated to see it again because I was afraid it might not hold up on a second viewing. Well, not only is it worth seeing a second time; it's definitely worth owning. George Clooney plays his role perfectly, and the rest of the cast does a fine job, too.

Of course no one knows what actually happened aboard the Andrea Gail. This film's script speculates because that is all it can do, but the result is a riveting adventure. I was especially pleased to come away feeling that those responsible for getting the technical details right did their jobs. I know how to turn a boat in heavy seas. That's how you do it, yes! I also know how a man who makes his living on the sea reacts to getting hit in the face with salt spray as he holds his course. He laughs. He's having a ball. Of course that part's from before things get frightening, but it's spot on. I know because my dad followed the sea, and I've watched him do just what George Clooney was doing in portraying his character.

A few weak spots? I'm sure they are there. But for me they flew straight past. Five stars and glad to give them!

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of "Love, Jimmy: A Maine Veteran's Longest Battle"

5/5 I loved it
  by JCV (Adventure, FL United States)
, but let's not forget this is mostly fiction. We can never know what transpired on the Andrea Gail. All the witnesses went down with the ship and you might have noticed a glaring goof: If these guys are in the worst storm of their lives, why are they not wearing their lifevests? Why do they wait so long to get the storm panels on the windows of the pilot house?

Nevertheless, the special effects are fantastic and the drama tearjerking, so go for it. Maybe even twice.

Strange trivia: The EPIRB of the Andrea Gail washed ashore on Sable Island, off Novia Scotia, which would tend to suggest the gusty crew never turned around at all.

4/5 The Big One
  by drkhimxz (Freehold, NJ, USA)
Now I remember why I swore never to set foot again in an ocean-going vessel after our ship weathered the edge of a typhoon. It is Mother Nature on a rampage; even the greatest of our seagoing boats are nothing but matchsticks when she kicks up her heels. Never mind whether or not this is from a true story, a good film cannot be reality, it only can provide a dramatic version oif what might have happened. In this case, as is pointed out by others. there is no way we can know just how the central characters dealt with the storm, so why worry about the accuracy of the film. Enjoy it or don't; the film cannot be the book and neither can it be reality.
Seemed to me that the audience is provided with sufficient pictorialization of The Sea kicking up its heels and how people, boats and planes might cope with it, to provide both entertainment with punch and some, not too much, sentimentality. The actors handled themselves well and the director insured sufficient action to keep one involved. It is two mostly good hours of film-making.

1/5 How do they know what happened?
  by Claudio Di Gregorio (Argentina)
I cannot but share verbatim what reviewer D. Goulton says here.
*spoiler*

As the movie was unfolding, I got more and more the ominous impression that ALL of them were going to die, but then I kept repeating myself that all the minute details of what the crew was doing or saying would not make any sense if no one had survived.
Well, no one survived and the whole movie makes no sense. That's called cheating; they could have ended the thing by explaining that it was just a dream. Or that the guys that died were in fact the evil twins of the real crewmen, who were suffering from amnesia at the time.

I would have respected the makers more if they would have dropped the "based on a true story" claim.

What sense does it make to invent minutiae for a plot that goes nowhere and then call all that "real"? As a "real" story; what is the redeeming value of such a film? (Oh, yes. Selling boxoffice tickets. I forgot).


4/5 A Perfect Disc for A Perfect Storm
  by J. C. Jordan (San Francisco, CA USA)
This is a fine transfer to disc of a terrific movie. With loads of extras that deepen and enrich your understanding about the tragic, true events this movie is based on, and the problems and brilliant solutions the filmmakers came up to illustrate this tragedy.