This month’s Alien: Covenant marks Ridley Scott’s 24th feature film in what has been a long, influential, albeit uneven and sometimes flat out maddening career. From the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, Ridley Scott’s oeuvre is as inconsistent in quality as his late brother Tony’s was consistent in aesthetics and tone. He has his strengths – world building and managing epic scope – and his weaknesses – creating three-dimensional characters. These aspects aren’t always true, but they are more consistent than anything in his career.
Digging through Scott’s entire filmography, spanning epic classics and replacement-level thriller dreck, it was tough to try and rank some of the lesser works above the each other. But with careful viewing I began to disseminate just how much effort Scott was putting into his craft from movie to movie. It helped shape a list top heavy with older films and, unfortunately, a heap of Scott’s most recent work filling out the bottom of this list.
Here we go…
8. White Squall (1996)
Scott takes on the high seas in this story about boys becoming men. Jeff Bridges is the star as the leader of a sailing expedition that endures highs and lows, but this cast is full of young talent: Scott Wolf, Jeremy Sisto, Ryan Phillippe, and Ethan Embry.
White Squall is a patient film, something Ridley Scott is more than capable of executing. When the schooner finds itself in the middle of a potentially deadly storm, we have built camaraderie and developed personal connections with so many of the young boys of the trip that the audience is invested in the harrowing final act. Scott opposes the expansive, infinite setting of the ocean against a very personal, engaging human story. It’s another example of Scott showing off skills he typically doesn’t employ in his bigger pictures.
