movies like six days , seven nights make me mad because talented people like harrison ford , anne heche , and ivan reitman put a lot of hard work in to a script worth about ten cents . ?
the script was written by michael browning , and he decided that , instead of thinking up new ideas , he’d rehash a lot of cliches , omit even the slightest bit of character development , and then throw in drug-dealing pirates to provide for a few high-level action sequences and explosions . ?
there are good scripts out there that high-profile actors can make ( see the truman show , for instance ) . ?
six days , seven nights is simply a waste .
let’s see .
.
.
we have to get harrison ford and anne heche alone on an island . ?
so , how do we do that ? ?
well , we’ll make her a feisty magazine editor , and we’ll make him a crusty old pilot . ?
but wait , she has to have a fianc ? e ; that can be david schwimmer . ?
but wait , if she has a fianc ? e , how will she and harrison ford crash on the island alone ? ?
i know ! ?
they’ll get to their vacation spot , and then she’ll get called back ! ?
yessssss ! ?
so , they’ll crash on the island , and that will be funny for about five minutes . ?
shucks .
oh , i’ve got it ! ?
we’ll throw in a distracting subplot in which her fianc ? e has sex with a really attractive woman who acts like a bimbo , and then he can feel guilty . ?
then , when anne heche kisses harrison ford ( they have to kiss , because otherwise nobody will want to see the movie ) , it will be a vindicated action , because her fianc ? e will already have cheated on her ! ?
then , for no obvious reason , they’ll accidentally run into pirates who try to kill them . ?
oh , yes ! ?
i feel so good about this story . ?
instead of using characterization to propel the events , it will be completely random , and yet totally predictable ! ?
imagine that .
don’t get me wrong — six days , seven nights is not a boring picture ; ford and heche both do a great job . ?
the sparks fly between them , and so most of browning’s inane dialogue is drowned out by the actors’ sheer force of talent .
? almost every scene between them has energy that the performers bring to the screen , and i found myself laughing pretty hard . ?
schwimmer is also funny , and manages to milk all of his scenes for whatever he can get . ?
and reitman , who has made some good films , at least tries to make things exciting . ?
even though the pirate subplot is profoundly dumb , i was prepared to be pleasantly sidetracked by the action sequences .
it’s just when i start to think about the story that my contempt for this film surfaces . ?
the picture feels like it’s been hacked to pieces — i wouldn’t be surprised if five or six inept subplots have been edited out completely . ?
the ones that are here are as bad as they come ( i think i let out a very audible groan when they get the first glimpse of the pirate ships ) , and i’d just like to shake the producers by the shoulders and scream , ” why did you pick this awful script ! ? ” ?
the film is outright stupid , but some of the elements are subtly horrifying . ?
for instance , take the subplot in which the schwimmer character has sex with the bimbo , and then feels really guilty . ?
this is a serious problem in real life , but six days , seven nights reduces any chance of complexity to a weak plot device : ? his actions are what makes it okay for heche to kiss ford . ?
in a script that lacks even a glimpse of intelligent subtlety , i find it odd that such a strangely insulting device ended up in the story .
this is summer movie season , but that doesn’t mean our movies have to be dumb . ?
1998 so far has been one of the worst years in recent memory for summer blockbusters . ?
when i was in line for six days , seven nights , i heard the woman in front of me ask for ” two tickets to that new harrison ford movie . ”
? why didn’t she know the name of the film ? ?
i suppose she just didn’t care .
? what bothers me even more is that the people who make these big-budget pictures don’t realize that their films are becoming parodies of themselves . ?
good actors should sign to good scripts , and if hollywood insists on making flicks to rake in cash , they least they could do is assume that we’d like to spend our money on a story worth more than ten cents .