SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS
Heche is Robin Monroe, a highly-placed assistant editor for a trendy
women's magazine called Dazzle. Her boyfriend Frank (David Schwimmer)
surprises her with a romantic week's vacation for two on a tropical island
near Tahiti. The last leg of their trip is aboard a small, four-seater airplane
flown by Quinn Harris (Ford), who brings along his fabulous babe island
girl Angelica (Jacqueline Obradors). Soon after they arrive, Frank proposes,
and the vacation is off to a pleasant start.
Unfortunately, Robin is too valuable an employee: she is needed for a
quick photo shoot on Tahiti; though her boss is apologetic about disrupting
her vacation, she promises to make it worth Robin's while. So she grudgingly
tracks down Quinn to fly her back to Tahiti for 15 hours so she can manage
the shoot. He agrees (for $700); though the weather is bad, he thinks he
can make it. But on the way the weather gets worse. There is a very impressive
effects scene of the small plane flying through an electrical storm, with
Robin popping Xanax to calm down and Quinn making the exact same face he
did when the Millenium Falcon failed to make the jump to hyperspace. Finally
they crash on a tiny deserted island, breaking off the plane's landing gear
in the process.
While they await help, Frank is enjoying the night life back at the resort,
getting seriously aroused by the belly dancers and tropical women in general.
When he gets a call from Robin's boss asking why she never showed up, everyone
realizes they must have crashed, and he and Angelica are so distraught they
sleep together. Meanwhile Quinn and Robin, who apparently doesn't own a
bra, have all sorts of misadventures together, forming a bond that only
a life-and-death situation can.
This movie isn't going to win any awards, but Heche and Ford give enjoyable performances. The cinematography is beautiful; the location (Hawaii) can't help but give an adventurous, Treasure Island-ish feel to the proceedings. There are a few holes in the plot (Robin is surprisingly used to island camping for a NYC exec, and she also seems to have packed a week's worth of clothes for this 15-hour side trip). Ford's performance seems phoned in, but his role doesn't call for anything that we haven't seen him do a hundred times. Schwimmer is little more than background decoration. All in all, not a masterpiece, but a fun movie nonetheless. ***½