SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Pretty Good

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

I watched the first half of this, but could not go on. It was too bad. The only thing that was interesting in it, were the real (actual) news clips from the time. And you can watch those on the internet if you like.EVERYTHING was bad. The script, the acting (several of the main actors were clumsy and amateurish), and the idea in itself of making a disaster movie without a substantial budget and modern technical effects. I am not saying that a disaster movie with expensive technical effects necessarily has to be a good movie, but the opposite is simply not possible. It felt like filmed theatre more than a movie, but when you are watching a play you are "in it" - I mean you realize that your imagination must fill in what is not possible to realize on a scene. From a movie you expect much more.But the worst of it was of course, that a movie like this is offensive against the families and friends of the disaster victims. One can make movies about the Titanic, but to make a movie about a disaster that happened only nine years ago (I mean when the movie was released), when memories are still fresh and almost all the grieving people are still alive, is only disgraceful.About the spy story, I am quite sure that there is nothing in it. It has been proved that the catastrophe was caused by bad upkeep of the Estline fleet, and a lack of routines for regular overhaul. Trying to find a more "exciting" explanation is only silly and immature, and can only cause more distress for everybody.This movie left a bad taste in my mouth.

I noticed another reviewer saw this movie in Germany. So did I. I was on vacation and was interested in checking out what was playing in English. Therefore, I had no expectations walking into "Baltic Storm". (I had never heard of the true life tragedy.) But the names (particularly Donald Sutherland's) made it intriguing. So was the movie. It gripped me from the very beginning, as it set the stage for what was to come: two hours of tension mixed with heartbreak as two ordinary people (Greta Scacchi and Jurgen Prochnow) doggedly searched for the truth amidst of world that lies as a matter of course. Even if it's for the so-called 'greater good'. Even if it means that almost a thousand people had to die. Everyone interested in what's really going on in the world should see this movie.

On a vacation in Germany, we went to the Sony Center in Berlin and caught a screening of "Baltic Storm" in the original English version. I had only vaguely remembered the sinking of the 'Estonia' and was apprehensive that this would be another "Titanic" rip-off. Far from it. This film was the story of the aftermath and an enormous cover-up as to why the ferryboat sank. The story was tense, and had us guessing to till the end. (By the way, how did the filmmakers know about these so-called CIA 'black prisons'in Eastern Europe back in 2003?) Jurgen Prochnow (from "Das Boot" and Greta Scacchi ("Cotton Mary") and Donald Sutherland (from just about everything) were incredible. Awesome movie.

As has often been remarked, on one level this is a genuinely rotten movie - story, filming, etc. Many of the German actors are really good, but hardly in this flick. However, the movie is a "good thing" because it legitimately raises the point of the "Estonia" disaster - which after all has never been satisfactorily cleared up. The movie is banned in Sweden, and that alone makes it worth watching. (Imagine a movie on an US catastrophe that would be banned in the US because it implies government involvement - such as "JFK"!) We do not know what caused the sinking of the "Estonia", but we do know it was not an accident as reported, and it is not exactly far-fetched to surmise that the Swedish government is implicated, at the very least, in the hush-up of whatever caused it. It's good that this movie reminds the audience of that. The comments on this site that such a movie shouldn't have been made because that would capitalize on the victims and their relatives is outright bizarre - if anything, this movie, rotten as it is, is one of the few monuments for the victims; not adequate, but still.