An enjoyable new course in the Disney educational curriculum (Dead Poets Society, Renaissance Man, Dangerous Minds, Mr. Holland's Opus, etc. ), an old-fashioned boys-made-men adventure story, based on factual accounts of the 1960 voyage of the Albatross, a nautical classroom that set sail in the Caribbean with a crew of preppie landlubbers, got stopped by bellicose Cubans (pre-Bay-of-Pigs), and eventually got capsized in a freak storm, with much loss of life. It's all very warmed-over, from the sententious salt at the ship's helm (Jeff Bridges, growling lines like "It takes discipline to make it out here" and "We're strong as our weakest link"), to the Shakespeare-Donne-Kipling-quoting English teacher, to the sharply drawn and sharply contrasted psychological profiles of the students, to the Tom Cruise mimic in the central role (Scott Wolf), to the prettifying photography and the petrifying climax. It's all very easy to take, too, excepting the courtroom dénouement that struggles outrageously not to be an anti-climax. With Caroline Goodall, John Savage, Balthazar Getty, Jeremy Sisto; directed by Ridley Scott. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd
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