Reflections

The Killer Storm

Video, 91 min., 1999

Call them Ishmaels. Like the narrator of Moby Dick, the Coast Guard and Air Guard servicemen who figure prominently in this History Channel documentary are caught in an epic drama of Man vs. Nature, fighting for survival in waters just as violent as those described by Melville 150 years ago. Their Great White Whale is a monstrous storm, the likes of which modern meteorology had never seen: 1,500 miles across, with 100-mph winds, and waves 100 feet tall. Much as Melville expounds upon whales to prepare us for the terrible wonder of his titular beast, screenwriter Jesse Sublett deftly sets up the storm with a crash course in Atlantic weather patterns and the most destructive storms of the 20th century. By the time a team of rescue parajumpers is forced to ditch its helicopter in the thick of the killer storm, we grasp the event in all its awesome fury. The film never transcends its cable-channel roots, but Sublett and director Markham cover their subject with the intelligence and broad view of the best films of this kind. And when they zero in on the brave men who drop into those harrowing seas, they deliver an adventure both gripping and wondrous.