SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS
RATING: 7 / 10 --> Good movie
From the man who brought us GHOSTBUSTERS and
TWINS, comes a story starring Han Solo, Harrison Ford, and the
woman presently dating TV star Ellen DeGeneres, Anne Heche.
Director Ivan Reitman straps himself behind the camera for this
fuzzy piece of ROMANCING THE STONE (7.5/10)-lite.
PLOT:
Loving, romantic man takes his lady of choice to an exotic island
for some time alone together. While there, she gets called away
on business, and is taken to Tahiti, by a carefree and wayward
pilot. During a storm, their plane gets hit by lightning and
crashes onto an unknown island. Stuck with one another, the duo
attempt to find a way back to civilization, and gradually get to
know each other better.
CRITIQUE:
Mindless fluff piece does not pass itself off as anything more
than a simple 95-minute exercise in mild comedy, overly precise
romance, decent chemistry and a non-threatening adventure. I
enjoyed this movie on the whole because I was able to rest my
brain for a quick little while, and allow myself to follow the
misadventures of two charming actors, whose fate never seemed
like much of a mystery to me. The film was easy to digest, well
enough to enjoy along a round of tasty hot nachos, and perfectly
paced as to never allow you to fully grasp the generic nature of
its essence.
Kudos go out to both Harrison Ford and Anne Heche, who luckily for the audience, seem to have sparked off a few rays of charm into their characters. The opposite can be said of David Schwimmer, who still cannot seem to play anything but that dolt-headed puppy-eyed love schmuck from his hit TV show "Friends". That aside, I was impressed by his character's real struggle over extra-curricular sexual activities, and the actual conscience that he displayed in its aftermath. Unlike many men in other movies, this character showed us that a man isn't always ready to jump into bed with a chesty knockout at a drop of a dime, but that morals, ethics and one's conscience always play a revolving part in any such decision. Overall, the film doesn't have many standout scenes to write home about, but does offer some beautiful shots of the island's panoramic possessions, along with some engaging performances by its leads. You'll laugh, you'll sigh, you won't fall asleep and you'll forget about the whole thing in the morning. If these are some of the elements that you are looking for in a short film mixed in with a little adventure, then this one's your bag o' nuts! If not, skip this, and your life will forever be the same for having missed it.
Little Known Facts about this film and its
stars:
Perhaps the most fateful casting of Harrison Ford's career was
for a
role that he very nearly passed up. A promising young director
named
George Lucas offered him a supporting part in his film AMERICAN
GRAFFITI (7/10), but Ford walked off the set in disgust when he
learned
that he would be paid only $485 a week, less than half what he
was
earning at that time as a carpenter. Luckily, he changed his mind
when
the studio offered him an extra fifteen dollars a week. He also
got the
part of Indiana Jones in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (8/10), after
Spielberg and Lucas could not schedule filming of the movie
around
their first choice's TV schedule, as Tom Selleck had a commitment
to
his hit TV show "Magnum P.I.".
Harrison's wife is a screenwriter in her own right, and counts
E.T.
(8/10) and Martin Scorsese's KUNDUN among her handful of credits.
In
fact, in 1996, Harrison was listed as one of 50 people barred
from
entering Tibet, after Disney clashed with Chinese officials over
the
film KUNDUN, which his wife wrote.
Anne Heche's father, Donald Heche, was a choir director in a
Baptist
church who frequented gay bars at night. Heche found out about
her
father's double life at the age of twelve, as he lay dying of
AIDS. "I
watched my dad disintegrate from AIDS because he was ashamed to
be what
he wanted to be," Heche relates. He died the following year.
In 1991,
she won a Daytime Emmy for playing Outstanding Younger Actress in
a
Daytime Drama Series for TV's "Another World".
Actress Jacqueline Obradors, who plays the playful Angelica in
this
film, was discovered by a producer while she was working as a
grocery
store clerk.
Director Ivan Reitman was born in Czechoslovakia, but brought up
in
Canada.
David Schwimmer graduated from Northwestern University. His
mother is a
lawyer who took care of Roseanne's first divorce.
Review Date: December 27, 1998
Director: Ivan Reitman
Writer: Michael Browning
Producers: Ivan Reitman, Roger Birnbaum and Wallis Nicita
Actors: Harrison Ford as Quinn Harris
Anne Heche as Robin Monroe
David Schwimmer as Frank Martin
Jacqueline Obradors as Angelica
Genre: Comedy
Year of Release: 1998
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(c) 1998 Berge Garabedian