‘A Brief History of Chasing Storms’

“A Brief History of Chasing Storms”

(USA)

Screened at the 61st Chicago International Film Festival (1/5)

, Letterboxd (1/5), Imdb.com (2/10), TMDB.com (2/10); Imdb.com critics review

Web site

Trailer

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For what it’s worth, first-time filmmakers are sometimes the target of exaggerated criticism that may or may not be warranted. And, even though constructive suggestions may indeed be helpful for improving the quality of future projects, it’s important to remember that their initial efforts might not be a fair reflection of their innate talents, so tact would be recommended when rendering advice. However, it should also be noted that there are exceptions to this rule, when frank, plainspoken observations – a form of cinematic tough love, as it were – would truly be called for. That’s very much the case with the debut documentary feature from writer-director Curtis Miller, a project in serious need of retooling. Let’s start with what works: the film incorporates a fine score and soundtrack, and there is some intriguing montage work scattered throughout the picture. That, unfortunately, is about where its assets end. This alleged look at the history of chasing storms in the Tornado Alley region of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas falls far short of its stated goal, especially when it comes to examining the time-honored phenomenon of storm chasers, a subject about which considerable documentation has already been compiled and produced (including the two narrative features in the “Twister” franchise (1996, 2024)) but that has inexplicably been relegated to little more than a passing afterthought here. Instead, much of the narrative focuses on the history of several extreme tornadic events over the years (some of which predate the rise of the practice of storm chasing as it’s known today), with little meteorological documentation of these events, their aftermaths or those who may have attempted to track them. This is presented largely in the form of a loosely connected patchwork of anecdotal interviews with those who lived through the storms, the content of which often goes far off topic to innocuous and highly irrelevant material. But, if this is truly supposed to be an examination of storm chasing, where is the material about it? In fact, the one storm chaser who is interviewed for this film spends more time talking about his car than anything else. And, to put it bluntly, who cares? While the anecdotal material provides a personal touch, it sheds little light on the subject at large, the motivations driving those who engage in it, and the technology and practices used by its committed investigators. In essence, this release feels more like a collection of loosely assembled home movies and found footage strung together about a handful of specific storms without providing much insight or history into the larger subject it’s supposedly seeking to cover. To its credit, at least the picture’s title is accurate in that it offers up a “brief” history of storm chasing, given that it sports a scant 71-minute runtime, of which little is devoted to its purported primary subject. Indeed, considering what’s presented here, one might actually learn more about storm chasing by spending a few hours watching The Weather Channel instead. These are fundamental filmmaking considerations the director should sincerely take to heart when working on future projects.