Baltic Storm

In 1994, the ferry MS Estonia sank and took over 800 lives in the process. For years, there were various theories as to what happened and why and by the time this movie was made in 2003, the actual reasons for the sinking were not 100% clear. Now, however, they have a much clearer idea...and the conspiracy theory this film promotes turns out to be a lot of hogwash. However, the film also purports to be the truth...and I wonder how many folks believe this wild tale.

When the story begins, you can see it's NOT an especially good movie technically speaking. Despite having some prodigious talent in the three leading roles, much of the rest of the production looks and sounds cheap. Bad narration, terrible music, awful edits and bad acting (apart from the three leads) make this a film which not only is inaccurate with its assertions about the accident but is also a bad film.

My recommendation is that you skip the movie and just read up on the accident. You'll learn far more than you would watching this movie.

International political intrigue at its very best! BALTIC STORM is a very well directed movie that lives up to it's title. The storyline is inherently interesting and the plotlines masterfully woven in a way that keep you guessing throughout. The acting is very strong, especially from Donald Sutherland. If you're a fan of Costa-Gavras or just in thrillers in general, definitely check this one out!

This music is totally out of touch with the film, showing up now and then as wagnerian bombast and Lone Ranger hurry-up, otherwise nonexistent. The acting, outside of the two principals, is nonexistent. It would have been an excellent student film. The Russian soldiers are just models trying to act. The constant interruptions with wow-explosive-camera angles and monocolor clips of pieces of people were quite irritating, but that's just a personal feeling. The story line isn't worse than others, actually not worse than most, completely ignoring logic and reason and reality. At least nobody walked in front of a machine gun for three minutes without being hit. The three top-level bad guys were campy.

As has often been remarked, on one level this is a genuinely rotten movie - story, filming, etc. Many of the German actors are really good, but hardly in this flick. However, the movie is a "good thing" because it legitimately raises the point of the "Estonia" disaster - which after all has never been satisfactorily cleared up. The movie is banned in Sweden, and that alone makes it worth watching. (Imagine a movie on an US catastrophe that would be banned in the US because it implies government involvement - such as "JFK"!) We do not know what caused the sinking of the "Estonia", but we do know it was not an accident as reported, and it is not exactly far-fetched to surmise that the Swedish government is implicated, at the very least, in the hush-up of whatever caused it. It's good that this movie reminds the audience of that. The comments on this site that such a movie shouldn't have been made because that would capitalize on the victims and their relatives is outright bizarre - if anything, this movie, rotten as it is, is one of the few monuments for the victims; not adequate, but still.

I have to admit, I picked this movie just for the cast, and while Sutherland, Scacchi, and Prochnow were - as usual - great performers, the rest of the movie was such a let down. It feels like it was put together by a team of adolescents with low level scripts, that is, scripts lacking any depth, awful photography and editing, and hilariously lousy score! I can't believe I was able to watch this seemingly long movie until the end... the sad thing is, this could have actually been a great political thriller given the interesting plot. All the potential was there to make it a hit; that is, two main ingredients are there: a great story of national conspiracies, and a great core cast (even though many other actors are pretty much soap opera quality). But maybe I'm missing something; until then it's still not worth more than a 3 in my opinion.