6 Days, 7 Nights
A Review
By Jeremiah Rickert
Starring: Harrison Ford, Anne Heche, David Schwimmer, Jacqueline Obradors Directed by: Ivan Reitman
Any film with Anne Heche manages to glom headlines because of her public relationship with Ellen DeGeneres. The film probably needs as much help as it can get, despite the box-office friendly Harrison Ford and Friend's puppy dog David Schwimmer rounding out the leads. My first reaction when I saw the preview for this film was "Romancing the Stone" but without the on-screen chemistry of Turner and Douglas, and for the most part, I was right.
The plot is fairly thin, relying on the interaction between characters to drive it for the most part. Some of their banter is funny and cute, but the two big leads, a fashion editor played by Anne Heche (Volcano, Wag the Dog, Donny Brasco) and a grizzled charter pilot played by king of the box office, Harrison Ford, just don't quite seem to mesh right on the screen, and I got the impression that if they hadn't kept tripping and falling into each other's arms, they wouldn't have had any relationship at all. Their lives intertwine when Ford's Quinn flies Heche's Robin and her fiance Frank played by David Schwimmer (Friends, Pallbearer, Breast Men) to an island paradise where Frank has chosen to be the place of their engagement. They seem oh-so-happy together in paradise, with the prospect of a long and happy married life before them. However, because Frank arranged with Robin's boss to get the week off in the first place, it turns out that she knows where to reach them and Robin gets asked to fly over to Tahiti for a quick photo-shoot. She (and $700) convince Quinn to fly her to the shoot and leave behind his buxom island beauty Anjelica, played by Jacqueline Obradors (Problem Child 3, Red Sun Rising).
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, they are forced to crash land because of a storm, and then all sorts of bonding takes place. All hope seems lost, especially when Robin accidentally shoots their only flare into a palm tree. With the landing gear damanged, the radio fried, and no apparent hope for rescue, they decide to explore the island, which leads to two scenes that seem almost purposefully plucked from Romancing the Stone, a mud-slide-ride, and the discovery of a crashed plane. Luckily the plan is a Japanese pontoon boat, and LUCKILY there happened to be a hack-saw in the plane. The final nudges to the plot involve some rather nasty pirates and Frank's infidelity with Anjelica.
This film could have worked if the chemistry between the leads had been better. For some reason Ford and Heche don't really click. They seemed fine individually, but don't really go together. Ford at times reminded me of Dennis Quaid in Great Balls of Fire, making some of the same faces and such, but really I thought the two of them did fine in their individual roles. Schwimmer plods through his role as the apparently sweet and romantic frank. However, it seems like he has so little personality when he's away from his sitcom pals. My theory is that the cast of Friend's has a collective borg-esque personality, and when they're alone they only have a tiny fragment, not enough to make a convincing performance at anything. (at least so far) Ajelical also comes up as a cliche and the two of them seem like a perfect pair.
Reitman is primarily a comedy director and there are some funny moments in the film, however some of them fall rather flat (like the pirates blowing themselves up). I also got a little bit tired of Heche's nipples in just about every scene she was in. It almost seems like they should have gotten some billing or some stunt credit or something. My final major beef was with the amount of convenient equipment he happened to have on board the plane, including a come-along which is just what every pilot carries I'm sure. I almost felt like humming the A-Team themsong.
Overall, the film was all right, I'm sure Ford's star-power will carry the film to decent returns. I'm not sure if Heche is star power yet, but she's certainly well-publicized. I was disappointed by the lack of chemistry between the leads, especially when it seems like that was the thing driving the film on, the supporting case was pretty much window-dressing as well, plodding through their roles with a seeming lack of interest. There were some good laughs, but the action and the apparently coruncopia of hardware in his plane were a little too much for me to swallow.
Of the $6.75 that I paid for this, it was worth about $3.00
Copyright 1998 Jeremiah Rickert
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