Devil Winds

January. 01,2003      PG
Rating:
4.3
Trailer Synopsis Cast

A brilliant meteorologist returns to his hometown in Oklahoma to try to stop the biggest tornado ever.

Joe Lando as  Peter Jensen
Nicole Eggert as  Julia Merrow
Erica Durance as  Kara Jensen
Peter Graham-Gaudreau as  Robert Booker
Garwin Sanford as  Stan Chasen
Gerard Plunkett as  Dr. Raymond Ardmore
Genevieve Buechner as  Young Kara
Lauren K. Robek as  Mary Jensen
Rachel Hayward as  Karen Sowells
Kymberly Sheppard as  Stunt EDAC Worker

Reviews

Acensbart
2003/01/01

Excellent but underrated film

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Afouotos
2003/01/02

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

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BelSports
2003/01/03

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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Robert Joyner
2003/01/04

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

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Leofwine_draca
2003/01/05

DEVIL WINDS is the latest in a string of TV disaster movies I've seen. This one's quite obviously a spin on TWISTER, except of course it's nowhere near as good as that (average in itself) production. It's a film packed with grotty soap opera and boring dialogue and not nearly enough disaster.I knew this was going to be poor when I saw the attempted acting of the mother in the opening scene, which is laughable to say the least. It gets worse from there. The male lead is invariably wooden, the female lead an ageing has-been who was once on BAYWATCH, and the family drama type stuff is intensely grating.Scenes involving actual tornadoes are limited to the beginning, middle and end. There's a funny scene of a twister chasing a jeep, and later on a bit where a twister destroys a building. With nobody inside it, who cares? The CGI effects are pitiful, and looked like something out of THE SIMS at one point.No real reason to bother with this one, even genre aficionados will be sorely pressed to find something of merit.

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ikaros-3
2003/01/06

Adherence to current meteorological theory and good storm-chasing practices was not a hallmark of Twister. The science was atrocious and real storm chasers doing the bonehead things that our heroes did would've ended up smeared across vast stretches of the Great Plains. However, it more than made up for its factual flaws by being one hell of a great roller-coaster ride.And in comparison to 'Devil Winds', Twister is Citizen Kane, and a National Weather Service documentary to boot.It isn't so much that the science is bad in Devil Winds.It's non-existent to the point of being insulting to one's intelligence.It isn't bad enough that an allegedly professional meteorologist attempts escaping a poorly-CGI'd tornado by trying to out-run it. For the record: if one is caught on the road, drive at a right angle to the tornado, so that as quickly as possible it's not heading toward you anymore—it's passing behind you and moving away.But no. Not only does Our Hero™ drive directly away from the digital funnel cloud—which is about forty or fifty feet behind him at most—it follows him around an s-curve in the road.Let me repeat that: it *follows* the *curve* in the *road*.Upon reaching his destination, the tornado takes a twenty minute coffee break. It has been some fifteen meters behind him the whole time, and when he stops the car and gets out to protect an endangered building, the titular Devil Wind is suddenly nowhere to be seen. Why? Maybe it stopped off for a Slurpee. It would make as much sense as anything else in this movie.There's more, but it all seems so very irrelevant. It's all formulaic and predictable. It should come as no surprise that the building where the tornado's coffee break occurs is an Incredibly Dangerous Disease Storage Center at which the obligatory Estranged Offspring® of Our Hero™ works—and of which, of course, the boss is a crook.About the only cliché left out was having it built on an ancient Indian burial ground. Sheesh.This was first run on Pax (now ION), so unsurprisingly the Estranged Offspring® and Our Hero™ have by the end of the movie a Tearful Reconciliation© wherein All Is Forgiven (pat. pend.). And It couldn't have been more perfectly telegraphed by Samuel F.B. Morse himself.In short, Devil Winds is poorly thought out, poorly written, and poorly executed, and a bigger waste of a disc than anything outside of an AOL free trial.Save this for a MST3K Home Game.

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Fieldsp341
2003/01/07

I loved this movie. I thought the CGI's were good. Sometimes it looked like a real tornado was happening. I thought the actors did a great job with the content of the script. It is a made for television movie after all, not a blockbuster movie like Twister. I own this movie on DVD and love to watch it on lazy weekend afternoons. Personally, I thought Joe Lando, who played Pete Jensen, was fabulous. I loved the connection he had with his partner who chased tornadoes. And Nicole Eggert and Joe sparked some too. The special effects people did great with the budget they had. All in all, I think Devil Winds is really Cool. I recommend it for anyone who is interested in disaster type movies. It is no worse than any other budgeted television movie.

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Baylond
2003/01/08

This could be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I rented it a few nights ago with no knowledge of this movie. I understand TV movies aren't the highest budgeted in the world, but I'm fairly sure if they'd used stock footage of tornadoes instead of special effects the movie would have been a lot better.Basically(possible spoilers) the movie is about a man who loses his wife to a tornado in Oklahoma. He moves to Seattle, WA, and his daughter grows and goes to school back in Oklahoma. 10 years after the tornado kills his wife, he comes back to see his daughter, who has now grown up, graduate college(I think). The man has since given up his storm chasing days, but when he gets to Oklahoma and is reunited with his old storm chasing buddy he soon rekindles his spirit for tracking storms. The man soon realizes another storm is going to produce killer tornadoes again. He's right. Eventually this one tornado, an F5, comes after him. His daughter works in a disease control facility and the building isn't up to code. It's now up to him to overcome his dispute with his daughter and save all of central Oklahoma.Seriously, the worst special effects in the world. Also, the music was ripped off of Twister, only they played the music through a Nintendo and called it original. If you're looking for a good tornado movie, I'd recommend Twister. If you want one that was made for TV I'd recommend the Night of the Twisters. It's not great, but it's better then Devil Winds.

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