SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS (TOUCHSTONE)
RUNNING TIME: 1 HOUR 40 MINUTES. STARRING HARRISON FORD, ANNE HECHE AND DAVID SCHWIMMER DIRECTED BY IVAN REITMAN
Director Ivan Reitman, who brought us the brilliant Ghostbusters (1984), and the not so brilliant Fathers Day (1996), seems to back on good form with this entertaining comedy. Anne Heche and David Schwimmer play happy couple Robin and Frank, who take a holiday to a island of Tahiti. Robin works for a magazine in New York, and when she is called back from the island for an important photo shoot for the magazine, she has to use the services of Quinn Harris's (Harrison Ford) airline. The two, obviously, don't get along, and when Quinns plane crashes on a remote island, Quinn and Robin must learn to get along for a few days. Comedy and mayhem, plus romance, occur, all in true Hollywood fashion.
Six Days, Seven Nights is light, breezy entertainment, which places no demands on the viewer. Harrison Ford is surprisingly able at comedy, and is pretty funny. His character is a cross between Indiana Jones and Bill Murray, and comes off well. Anne Heche, Ellen DeGeneres girlfriend at the moment, also proves to be fun, and luckily never starts to annoy. Thankfully, there's also chemistry between them, making them a fun couple to watch. David Schwimmer is good as Robin worrying boyfriend, and he tries (and generally succeeds) to not be Ross from T.V's Friends. He also has the funniest scene towards the end. So, Six Days, Seven Nights gets off to a good start with funny actors. Director Ivan Reitman is also good, proving competent with both the comedy/romance, and the action scenes. The comedy is funny, and the action can get exciting.
Writer Michael Riva may be cutting it a bit close with the Romancing The Stone (1981) references, but generally the film breezes along. Sadly, the script never reaches the high point the audience expects. Although it has many opportunities, it never reaches quite the fever pitch the film should achieve. Still, there's some good one liners, some tense action, and the romance is never overly sentimental (mainly due to Ford's ruggedness.) Six Days, Seven Nights also looks good, with the island looking pretty impressive, and some nice special effects, especially during the storm which causes Quinns plane to crash. There's also a good soundtrack, with a toe tapping tropical feel, composed by veteran Randy Edelman.
Six Days, Seven Nights, in the end, turns out to be a non demanding, slightly cliched, yet always entertaining film, something Hollywood (and especially Ivan Reitman) specialize in. In fact, the film is completely crowd friendly, with a major star, undemanding jokes, romance and adventure. Six Days, Seven Nights main aim appears to be to please everyone, and in the end it does that. Although it's no classic, and 20 minutes after the film you probably would have forgotten about it, while watching the film Six Days, Seven Nights is loud, dumb and fun. Definitely worth watching. (Try to watch it with a large crowd, it adds to the entertainment.) OVERALL RATING=***1/2 OUT OF ***** REVIEW BY DAVID WILCOCK
DAVID WILCOCK david.wilcock@btinternet.com Visit the Wilcock Movie Page! http://wilcockmovie.home.ml.org -OR- http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/9061 Recieve Wilcock Movie Page Reviews via E-MAIL Send a blank E-MAIL to wmp-reviews-subscribe@makelist.com to join the mailing list!
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews