Review – White Squall

I just don’t remember growing up male as being anything like this. Of course I didn’t come of age in the early 1960s, and I certainly never bonded with other misfits from wealthy families on a sailing ship turned floating school (at least in part because as a youth I failed to master the wealthy family trick). The lads join a stalwart captain (Jeff Bridges) and a small crew of teachers for a journey that’s supposed to turn them into men. But things start going wrong when a particularly maladjusted boy (Jeremy Sisto) shoots a dolphin for no reason. The big moment, however, occurs just a bit later on when the title weather phenomenon sinks the ship, killing six of the people aboard including the captain’s wife. Though the cast is full of familiar faces, the actors can’t make up for a weak script that never rises above the level of generic teenage boy movie. The dolphin killing is particularly protracted and brutal. The picture even lacks director Ridley Scott’s usual visual panache. See if desperate