Chasing The Thunder (Mark Benjamin, Marc Levin, 2018):USA

Reviewed by Markus Rusti. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2018.

Chasing the Thunder is a documentary about illegal fishing in the arctics, it was made into a feature-length film from a documentary series that aired on television called ocean warriors.The movie follows two ships as they try to take down one of the biggest illegal fishing gangs in the world. “the big 6”. One of these is called thunder. One day when the ship Bob Barker and its crew is out patrolling the seas, the crew discover a boat on their radar which turns out to be the thunder from “the big 6” fishing illegally. This initiates one of the most intense boat chases in recent times. The Bob Barker, accompanied by the Sam Fisher, takes up the hunt to fight for the ocean’s ecosystem, especially the tooth-fish.

We follow Captain Peter and Captain Sidd as they pursue the thunder across oceans. The directors create suspense by cutting between the two boats and has scenes throughout the movie with the Captains talking to their respective crews to recap us on the story so far. What started out as a patrol mission turned into a more than 100-day chase around the world. The crews manage to contact the Thunder, but what often is the case is that the Crew working on illegal fishing boats don’t have any other choice, so they try to gain contact with the crew of the Thunder without the Captain noticing. They do this by throwing bottles with letter onto the deck of the Thunder from a small rubber boat, but while trying to get close, they get assaulted by the Captain and get chains and debris thrown at them.

Chasing The Thunder is an excellent documentary that is definitely worth your time. The movie manages to keep you interested even though they could only film on two boats.