Baltic Storm (2003)

Director:

Reuben Leder

Writers:

Reuben Leder (written by)
Jutta Rabe (story) ...

Release Date:

16 October 2003 (Austria)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

From beyond a watery grave, a story of secrets and lies.

Plot:

A journalist from Berlin, Germany, and a Swedish lawyer discover the truth behind the sinking of the "MS Estonia" in 1994, where more than 850 people drowned.

Plot Keywords:

Ferry | Baltic Sea | Pentagon | Disaster | Press Conference

Cast

Greta Scacchi	...	Julia Reuter
Jürgen Prochnow	...	Erik Westermark
Donald Sutherland	...	Lou Aldryn
Dieter Laser	...	Gehrig
Jürgen Schornagel	...	Jan Peters
Barbara Schöne	...	Ingrid Peters
Rein Oja	...	Captain Arvo Kallas
Herb Andress	...	Juri Roos
Birgit Stein	...	Tiina Ronk
Thure Riefenstein	...	Mika Galt
Francis Fulton-Smith	...	Markus Dackel (as Francis Fulton Smith)
Jürgen Tarrach	...	Gregor Karpatitsch
Andreas Günther	...	Rock Weber (as Andreas Guenther)
Patrizia Moresco	...	Elke Groat
Michael Schreiner	...	Dr. Sergei Raspoff

Also Known As:

Code: Baltic Storm (Germany) (working title)

Runtime:

Germany:113 min | Germany:110 min (TV version)

Country:

Germany | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Finland:K-11 | Germany:12 (w)

Filming Locations:

Babelsberg, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany

Company:

Top Story Filmproduktion GmbH

Trivia:

The Fishguard-Rosslare ferry was used during filming.

Goofs:

Continuity: The damage to Erik and Julia's car repairs itself.

Movie Connections:

Features "Tagesschau" (1952)

This could have been something

To sum up Baltic Storm in a few words you could say: bad acting, terrible script and directing, a ridiculously retro musical score with an important story that shouldn't be treated this badly. You could perhaps complement Baltic Storm on its editing and cinematography. The five minutes or so of actual archive footage from the last days of the Cold War in the beginning of the film is the best part of the whole thing.

To begin with, Jutta Rabe's alter ego Julia Reuter is an incredibly dull person. You've seen these strong women before and when it's done in a professional manner it works but when it isn't it's really bad. Scacchi can act, but the script doesn't allow her to be anything else but a big cliché.

Jürgen Prochnow does what he can with his character but it's not very clever to make Germans play Swedes as well as Estonians when it's done in such an amateurish way. Prochnow has a name, but he doesn't succeed in portraying the Swedish lawyer losing a son in the disaster. This is not his fault, it's the badly written script again.

There are some well-played characters like Dieter Laser's Gehrig and Donald Sutherland's bad American, but it doesn't help much. The film concentrates on the relationship between Prochnow and Scacchi and there's no chemistry there I can tell you that. Their search for the truth is just a ridiculous chase after ghosts in the woods.

The story however is interesting. The producer Jutta Rabe was a very controversial person in Scandinavian media for a while. She wanted to tell the truth and talked of great conspiracies, one that is shown here in the film. She could have done a better job. If not for the audience, so at least out of respect for the people who lost near and dear ones that day. They deserve a better presentation of "facts".