Six Days, Seven Nights

Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), directed by Ivan Reitman

You can make a good argument that Harrison Ford is the biggest star in the history of Hollywood and the most-watched actor of all time. His acting, however, has never received great critical acclaim. His one Oscar nomination came for 1985's Witness, but he lost to William Hurt. Perhaps the Academy voters thought he was too young at that pointfor a lifetime achievment award. If Ford had taken the role of Lt. Col. Tall in 1998's The Thin Red Line, as he had allegedly been offered, he would be virtually assured of an award, but he passed it by in favor of a more conventional and commercial romantic comedy instead. Well, perhaps after The Mosquito Coast Ford decided that unsympathetic roles are not for him.

So he starred in Six Days, Seven Nights, a piece of dreck about a magazine editor ( Anne Heche) who goes on a Polynesian vacation with her fiancee ( David Schwimmer), but who ends up stranded on a deserted tropical island with a grungy pilot (Mr. Ford). Why? Who cares.

If you are thinking to yourself "I'll bet at some point the mutual antagonism between Ford and Heche disappears and they start swapping spit," then I'd say "No duh!" If you are thinking that a romance between Ford and a woman around half his age sounds creepy, I'd say that you are smarter than the Disney executive who greenlighted this mess. If you ever wondered what happens to the romantic comedies that even Meg Ryan thinks are corny, well, I think you can see where I'm going with this.

What's wrong with Six Days, Seven Nights? Most importantly, there is nada between the leads. No chemistry. Not only do you never buy the romance, you never even buy the antagonism. Were they even together on the same set, or is this movie the result of bluescreen and CGI technology? Second: the film is totally formulaic. You could predict everything that was going to happen well before it happened. It might have been nice to be surprised just once. Third: what's the deal with David Schwimmer? Was he in another movie, or what? Or was he convinced that this was actually the South Seas episode of Friends?

Is there anything nice to be said about it? Um...pretty locations? Harrison Ford is always interesting to a certain extent. Jacqueline Obradors (as Ford's girlfriend) is fun to look at in a purely chauvinistic manner. But that's it.

Now Ivan Reitman is capable of directing some very funny movies, but only if he has a funny script, which he had for Dave, Stripes, and Ghostbusters, but didn't have for Father's Day and this one. Finally, might I just say that Anne Heche may have charms or talents of her own, but they are totally lost on me. Why she keeps getting such high-profile roles, I'll never know.

Two stars