Six Days Seven Nights by Michael Browning - Six out of 10

Six Days Seven Nights by Michael Browning

Six out of 10

Perhaps less than one phrase would be enough to describe this forgettable, rather ridiculous romantic comedy and a couple or three words might do it:

Waste of time

Having said that, some might enjoy seeing Harrison Ford as a…pilot, especially with the hindsight of his real life adventures, flying in the wrong places and at the wrong moments near the Los Angeles Airport where he has recently endangered the life of passengers with his reckless behavior.

Anne Heche might have a performance to watch, in the sense that this might be a lesson in “how not to act” and in moments, it is as absurdly exaggerated, artificial and nonsensical as to provoke some smiles.

She plays Robin Monroe, editor of a magazine that is as successful, in demand as to be asked the day after she has accepted a marriage proposal to fly to Tahiti, where some celebrities have agreed to fly just so that she can do an article on them…

Frank Martin is her boyfriend, played by David Schwimmer, a man who claims to be romantic, urged by his lover to be more imaginative and daring; he has a surprise for which he wants her to close her eyes.

They would travel to a paradisiacal, Pacific island, where they would spend a mesmerizing holiday.

Nevertheless, the means of transportation do not satisfy Robin, who is appalled by the plane that is supposed to take them to their destination and the pilot who seems to be a rather strange man, in working clothes and not the usual impeccable uniform of those working for established airlines.

This pilot is Quinn Harris, known by the world as Harrison Ford, in one of the most unfortunate roles of his career, although he is a titan when compared with the rest of the cast of this failed motion picture.

Furthermore, as they get on board in the small aircraft, angelica steps up, with her very sensuous, attractive body and she is introduced as the director for tourism – or some such grand title – for the company.

They arrive on the island, escorted in as small plane at their mesmerizing hut, with a splendid, glorious view of the ocean.

Late at night, Frank is asking his partner to wear something special for their evening in this paradise:

A ring!

He wants his girlfriend to marry him and she accepts, only to be invited by her guest to spend the next day on the neighboring island of Tahiti, where two very special, hard to get stars have accepted to travel just to be with Robin and allow her to do the article for the magazine.

Marjorie aka Allison Janney insists that her editor must get to Tahiti because she has to affirm her independence right from the beginning – or even before that actually – of her marriage.

She quotes some statistics that pretend to show that women abandon their career in high numbers when they become wives, although Robin points out that this is a made up number that they have printed, in their own magazine.

The heroine has to convince Harris to fly her and he seems more interested in spending time with the alluring Angelica – by the way, in this age, with the MeToo movement, this kind of humor would not be thinkable in Hollywood, with emphasis on the female body and the effect it has on macho men.

$ 500, the first offer made for this unscheduled flight is not enough to get the pilot out of bed, but raising it to 700 does the trick.

Alas, as they fly towards their destination, a storm that could well have been a hurricane makes them turn around and eventually crash land on a beach, on one of the islands that is uninhabited, unfriendly and so remote as to promise a very difficult time ahead.

The next morning, the rather arrogant, repellent Robin demands that the pilot flies the plane, only to be told that he is not one of those characters that drops in the jungle with a knife and then builds a mall for the woman he is with.

He asks his companion if she wants to hear a sugar coated version of what is ahead or the plain truth and when she says that he has to choose, he tells her that they are away from the world and they would spend a long, long…long and again long a few times time together far from civilization.

They have some adventures together, including stumbling upon – well…too near for safety – two pirate boats that then start chasing them, shooting with machine guns and then a cannon no less, because they have witnessed them killing a man.

Most of the time, the plot is preposterous, the acting – especially Anne Heche – is melodramatic, with the exception of Harrison Ford, who is rather decent, but his modest performance is not enough to lift this production from its lamentable depths.