Nate At The Movies

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

There wasn’t going to be a single thing I could do today to get that heart-wrenching Spurs loss out of my mind, not the least of which a new WWII movie in theaters, but that didn’t stop me from ending up there today. I didn’t have too many expectations for Pressure, but I figured it would be decent if Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser were at the center. Predictably, those two held their own, but there were still surprises to be discovered.

Most importantly, I didn’t know just how weather-centric this movie would be. I had seen the trailer, but the main characters being meteorologists clearly wasn’t obvious. To the credit of both Scott and Fraser (as well as Kerry Condon and Chris Messina), this was probably the most interesting film I’ve ever seen that was almost exclusively about weather. The local news could learn a thing or two about meteorological engagement from this movie. This was also a talking movie through and through, which I usually struggle with, but four passionate performances, Volker Bertelmann’s dramatic score, and a surprisingly short runtime for a war movie (100 minutes!) kept the film moving at a nice pace.

Even with strong performances from the meteorologists, I was waiting for something really interesting to happen on screen, and wouldn’t you know it, D-Day happened at the end of the movie depicting the hours leading up to D-Day! Just a few minutes of war was haunting and got me to sit up in my seat, and it made me wonder how I’ve ever made it through war movies where the horrors are shown the whole time. The ending swung from terrifying to uplifting, luckily, with Stagg reuniting with his family. That little plot point was interesting, too—giving Stagg a backstory that could potentially color his decisions was pretty important, especially because an emotional Stagg could’ve sent the troops out to bad weather as a measure of revenge (but he didn’t!). A small addition, but a crucial one, I think.

Pressure wasn’t anything too special in the world of war movies, but I enjoyed its polish and performances. I’m still catching up on Brendan Fraser’s filmography (Encino Man watch party, anyone?), but he continues to be excellent in everything I see him in, and the rest of the cast was great, too. I bet this movie will crush at the nursing homes—my theater today was me and three gentlemen in their 70s—and honestly, it worked well on me, too.