Ben Fogle, British TV personality, and James Cracknell, two-time Olympic rowing champion crossed the Atlantic in 22 ft rowing boat the other year and this is the story about it: in failure and triumph, in tears and laughter, in good days and bad days.
I never had heard of this before I came across it at Amazon.co.uk, but for less than 6 pounds I was willing to try!
The preparations, the race and the aftermath were, according to IMDb serialized on BBC, and is now out on DVD (I bought mine from Amazon.co.uk), as one program, running for 3.5 hours! And there is also some extra material as well :-)!
I must confess that I am a bad audience, when comes to watching DVDs of whatever kind, except a few films that catch my soul and heart. I usually check on the actors at IMDb.com, take a break, fix some coffee, et cetera, in short: I have problems keeping my focus.
But I didn't have any focusing problems while watching this (OK, I did cook coffee for the wife and made tea for myself, but only under the condition that the DVD was paused meanwhile)! I didn't want to miss a second of it!
Both of us were mesmerized, and the hours flew by, express!
The softer ideas man Ben and the tough as nails guy James, battle it out with the elements and themselves, while suffering physically and psychologically. During the trip they have a general electrical failure (not nice when your life depend on making fresh water from seawater), a horrendous end-over-heels capsize, repeated desalination machine break-downs, bad storms, very cramped conditions, and of course various sores, not least to hands, feet and butts.
Add to this a lot of practical problems on the way, long before the start in the Canaries, where it is still touch and go if they'll be allowed to start at all!
We follow their ups and downs, their meeting with whales (blue?), in the middle of the Atlantic, and how darn alone you are when everything breaks down (doesn't help that you can't call for help) - even your sanity is at stake! And we meet their families, and loved ones, before, under and after the epic journey.
This was a drama, a thriller and an outstanding documentary, extremely touching, well edited and cheap, just 5.95 pounds at Amazon!
As English isn't my native language I love subtitling, but both spoke a very clear and lucid English, even when in extreme distress,most of the time. When they didn't, or the microphones didn't quite catch what they said, there were a few lines of English subtitling added - a very thoughtful addition!
This was the best TV-film I've ever seen, period!
10/10