Ocean Warriors: Chasing the Thunder (Mark Benjamin, 2016): USA

Reviewed by Ellia Rodriguez. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, 2018.

Ocean Warriors: Chasing the thunder was a great story told by the people who risked their lives to protect the oceans of the south pole from horrible fishermen. I believe that this documentary is worth a watch for the intriguing story of a team of real life heroes whose travels brings a notorious ship to justice. It is a film that grabs the audience right away and keeps this urgency of wanting to see what happens though out the film.

All of the people on this boat chase are trying to protect wildlife in the Antarctica. One of the crew members talked about how she wanted to make a bigger impact on topics that were important to her and decided to join this crew.

We learn that in the world there is a big problem with legal fishing in the southern pole of the world. Interpol and other world organizations have a very difficult job so far of catching illegal fishing boats. So they have hired this crew which consists of 2 boats ready to bring justice to these illegal acts. Our warriors of the sea come across the notorious boat for illegal fishing The Thunder. Then at one point they were joined by a third boat. This boat was a legal fishing vessel that has also been very frustrated by the thunder. So they gladly helped in pursing and bringing the morale of the thunder down. The chase in total ened up being over 3 months long.

We see a lot of shots of the marine life in the area and then later on the devastation of the nets that destroys this ecosystem. To solidify the fact that this dire situation effects all of this precious life in the ocean. I noticed that in this film a lot of the framing, editing and camera movement are quick and close to the subjects. This adds to the overall urgency feel of the crew’s desire to capture this vessel.

It remind me of any type of reality shows that I have seen because of the framing of interviews with the crew members. Also when there were dramatic music during dire times of the chase, but it was definitely a way more refined way of using this cinematography then the reality shows that are on television. This situation also reminded me of Star Trek because much like the crew on star trek, this crew was all alone to make decisions on how to best handle an adversary. Some times you get lucky and you get some friendly help from strangers along the way which also ends up happening in star trek.

In conclusion I was hooked onto this movie since the very beginning. It brings to light how important this issue is and how hard it is to capture people that do this type of fishing. I was glad to see it in one whole movie and it is worth anyone’s time to watch.