- Content: “Alone in the Storm”
| None | Light | Moderate | Heavy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | ||||
| Violence | ||||
| Sex | ||||
| Nudity |
What You Need To Know:
NOT WITHOUT HOPE does a fantastic job grabbing viewers’ attention. The acting is phenomenal. It helps viewers connect and sympathize with the characters. However, the movie is too long and sometimes repetitive. Also, no one seems to be able to speak a sentence without emitting a curse word. So, the foul language in NOT WITHOUT HOPE is excessive and unacceptable.
Content:
Light moral, redemptive worldview promotes loyalty and bravery, with four men fighting to keep each other alive and risking their own lives for one another, but elements of selfishness and immorality are never resolved, God and church are brought up but cast aside, and nothing ever comes to fruition from the conversations, but a man says put your faith in God and pray, plus there’s brief magical pagan elements when a mother and a man’s fiancée try to speak to him through the sky;
At least 105 “f” words, 43 other obscenities and 29 strong and light profanities;
A man strikes another man multiple times, men die and are seen dead, blood is seen from cuts on multiple men;
An engaged man and woman are seen in bed together, but no sex implied, a man looks at the engaged couple sleeping and calls them hot, to which he is called out for being a pervert, couples kiss multiple times, and a man talks about making babies;
Upper male nudity;
Beer is talked about, and we see people drinking both beer and wine, plus someone asks how many beers it takes before you’re an alcoholic;
No smoking or drugs; and,
A man talks about how everything is all about him, and his focus is on himself.
More Detail:
They start bright and early, kissing their loved ones goodbye, and towing Marquis’s 21-foot fishing boat down to the dock. They notice that there are reports of a storm blowing into the Gulf; however, it isn’t supposed to hit until the evening, and Marquis responds that they will make it back in plenty of time. With all their gear set, they head off on the hours-long trip to the spot of an old shipwreck, Marquis’s fishing hole.
Upon arrival, they set out their lines and start reeling in fish. As the ocean starts to become rougher from the incoming storm, Marquis decides to call it quits and head back for the day. As he pulls up the anchor, it gets stuck. He yanks with all his might, but it doesn’t budge. Not about to lose another anchor like he had just the time before, he decides to throttle the boat forward and see if he can jar it loose. He slams the throttle to max, and the boat heaves forward, bow climbing in the air, except the bow doesn’t stop climbing but comes all the way up and flips the whole boat over. The men are expelled from the boat as it comes crashing down into the choppy waters. Unable to flip it back over, the men resort to sitting on top of it and holding onto one another.
As it gets dark, the temperature drops, and the waves begin to rise higher and higher, dashing upon the boat relentlessly. They realize that it is going to take everything in them to survive the night. Meanwhile, their families, worried to death, have alerted the Coast Guard, who launch an extensive search and rescue effort that includes boats, helicopters, planes, and even the U.S Navy. However, there isn’t much they can do during the storm as they fight against strong winds and heavy rain to find a tiny speck in a massive expanse of sea.
NOT WITHOUT HOPE does a fantastic job grabbing viewers’ attention. It’s filmed in a way that makes viewers lean forward in suspense and wonder what’s going to happen next. The actors do a great job in making this movie realistic. Viewers will be able to easily connect and sympathize with the characters, especially with this being a true story.
The movie has a lot of claustrophobic cinematography, which works great for some scenes, but gives the movie a lack of total scope. There are a few drone and helicopter shots, but most of the filming is up close in the actors’ faces, which can make things muddled and seem tight.
NOT WITHOUT HOPE is also longer than it needs to be. While it grabs your attention, it doesn’t do a great job of keeping it throughout the whole movie. Consequently, many scenes are drawn out and slow. These scenes further character development, so they aren’t a complete waste. At the same time, however, some scenes feel repetitive, especially the ones out in the ocean, where there isn’t really anything to interact with except water and more water.
NOT WITHOUT HOPE has mixed moral elements. It has strong elements of loyalty, showcasing how the men stick together and risk each other’s lives for one another. The Coast Guard and the men’s families work tirelessly to find them, even in the midst of the storm. God and church come up on two or three occasions. For example, the Coast Guard Captain tells everyone to put their faith in God for the situation and to pray. One of the men on the boat asks another man what he thinks about God, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. Also, there’s a random scene where one of the stranded men’s mother and fiancé decide to look up at the stars and talk to him, and he seems to hear them while lost at sea.
The biggest problem with NOT WITHOUT HOPE is the foul language. Everyone in the movie seems unable to utter a single sentence without emitting at least one, if not five, expletives. There are close to 200 swear words, with more than 100 “f” bombs. The cursing in no way furthers the story or makes it more realistic. It is thrown around in both light conversation and in serious peril. The studio may have made a grand mistake in doing this. The reason the movie is R-rated is because of the foul language. Set aside the language, and you might get a light PG-13 movie that would attract hundreds of thousands more viewers. We are meant to glorify God with what we do, in what we see, and also in what we hear, and this movie makes it hard to do that. The extensive foul language makes NOT WITHOUT HOPE excessive and unacceptable.
