Review: Six Days, Seven Nights
We haven't really had an adventure/love story in a while. The only two that come to mind (though I'm sure there's more) are Romancing the Stone and the classic The African Queen. Six Days, Seven Nights is most certainly in that vein but nowhere near in that league.
It's vigorous but not enough to be a romp; it's slight but is unpossessed of a light touch; it's diverting but not enough to be termed pleasant. There are pirates. Pirates. Pirates. Do you understand the echelon of stupidity one must achieve in order to come up with pirates? They're not even the Pirates of Penzance. The screenwriter's name is Michael Browning and whether he reached this level by birthright or progressed towards it is a question whose answer I need not seek.
The barebones plot has overworked magazine editor Robin Monroe (Anne Heche) and her bland beau Frank Martin (David Schwimmer) vacationing on some secluded tropical island. They're flown over by the gruff and cranky Quinn Harris (Harrison Ford), whose rickety plane looks as unreliable as Quinn is. When an impromptu photo shoot in Tahiti comes up, Robin turns to Quinn for help. He agrees to fly her there -- for the right price, of course. Once airborne, they encounter a storm and Quinn is forced to make a bad landing on the nearest available island. Robin and Quinn spend the rest of the film alternately flirting and bickering as they climb, hike, swim, and fend off pirates.
The pirates are led by the patchless Temuera Morrison, a wonderful actor relegated to playing third fiddle characters (Barb Wire, Speed 2: Cruise Control). For a glimpse of this man's thespian prowess, rent the potent and brutal Once Were Warriors. Schwimmer might as well have been a bystander, he's that unremarkable. Yet I know he's capable of more: his eye-opening turn in HBO's Breast Men -- a Boogie Nights for the plastic surgery set -- had no traces of his wearying hangdog charm. Jacqueline Obradors makes quite an impression as Quinn's bombshell girlfriend whose bed Frank happens to fall into. While Robin's away, the dog will play...
The two leads, at least, are enough to recommend the film. Ford lets loose with varying results. There are times when his discomfort results in embarrassing mugging. Yet those moments are outweighed by scenes in which he's playfully game. He's best in scenes where his frustrations get the better of him: the scene where he vents at a cluster of bushes is a genuinely funny, though oft-seen, sight gag.
Ford and Heche share a comfortable rapport and a slow sizzle chemistry that is natural and unforced. They are an irresistible duo. "How old are you?" Robin asks at one point. "How old do you think I am?" he shoots back. When he whispers his real age into her ear, she responds, "You still look good." "I still am good," he retorts and the twinkle in Ford's eyes makes you believe it, as if you thought otherwise to begin with.
I've been a fan of Heche's since she lit up the television soap, Another World. Her portrayal of twins -- one good, one bad -- snagged her a Daytime Emmy (another great actress, Julianne Moore, garnered the same award for her dual roles on As the World Turns). Heche is a madcap screwball -- directors like Preston Sturges, Frank Capra and Howard Hawks would have been mad for her. There are times in the picture when she is so reminiscent of Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby; she has a similar blithe spirit. Heche is so versatile that it's insulting to have people focusing on her offscreen sexuality instead of her immense onscreen abilities.
The only implausibility is that this firecracker of an actress wouldn't have survived on her own during this adventure. Heche possesses a fearlessness that's rare in today's crop of actresses. She doesn't need Ford to push her off that cliff, she would have cartwheeled off and sashayed back to shore.
Six Days, Seven Nights
Directed by: Ivan Reitman
Written by: Michael Browning
Starring: Harrison Ford, Anne Heche, David Schwimmer, Jacqueline Obradors, Temuera Morrison, Allison Janney, Cliff Curtis, Danny Trejo
