Six Days, Seven Nights
Theatrical release poster
Directed byIvan Reitman
Written byMichael Browning
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyMichael Chapman
Edited by
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed byBuena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release date
  • June 12, 1998 (1998-06-12) (United States)
Running time
102 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$65–70 million[1]
Box office$164.8 million[2]

Six Days, Seven Nights is a 1998 American action-adventure comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman, produced by Reitman and Roger Birnbaum, and starring Harrison Ford and Anne Heche. The screenplay was written by Michael Browning. It was filmed on location in Kauai, and released on June 12, 1998. The film received overall mixed reviews, with praise directed towards Ford's and Heche's performances and chemistry, but criticism directed towards the screenplay's predictability. The film was a box-office success, grossing $164.8 million worldwide.[2]

Plot

Robin Monroe is a New York editor for a fashion magazine called Dazzle. Her boyfriend of three years, Frank Martin surprises her with a week-long vacation in Makatea, an island in the South Pacific. The final leg of their journey to Makatea is in a vintage de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, piloted by a middle-aged American, Quinn Harris. They are accompanied by Quinn's sexy latina girlfriend Angelica. On their first night on the island, Frank proposes to Robin, who happily accepts. At a bar, a drunken Quinn, failing to recognize Robin, unsuccessfully hits on her.

The next morning, Robin's boss Marjorie wants her to briefly interrupt her vacation to fly to Tahiti to supervise a fashion shoot. She hires Quinn for USD 700 to fly her there. While en route, a sudden thunderstorm appears. The plane gets damaged by a lightning strike, forcing Quinn to crash-land on a deserted island, damaging the plane's wheel e.g. landing gear. Also transmitter and radio are lost. Quinn believes they are on an island that has a signal beacon located on a high hill. If disabled, a repair crew will be sent. After climbing a high hill, they discover that in fact they are on a different island.

Back on Makatea, Frank and Angelica accompany the aerial search party for their missing partners, but after several days, the search is unsuccessful and is soon called off. Frank, believing Robin is dead, gets drunk and sleeps with Angelica after she seduces him.

After spotting a boat off the island coast, Robin and Quinn head out to it in the life raft. Discovering that there are now two vessels moored next to each other, then observing a man being killed and thrown into the water, they realize that the second vessel belongs to Polynesian pirates. The pirates spot Quinn and Robin and pursue them back to the island. After briefly being captured, the two narrowly escape. While hiding in the jungle, they discover a crashed World War II Japanese floatplane. They salvage the pontoons and attach them to Quinn's damaged plane in an attempt to leave the island. As they are about to take off, the pirates reappear and fire shells onto the beach, injuring Quinn. They start the plane and are able to take off. They fly over the pirates, who accidentally destroy their own boat whilst shooting at the plane.

Quinn quickly instructs Robin on how to land the plane before passing out due to his injury, leaving Robin to fly it herself. Arriving at Makatea, she lands the aircraft close to the beach, where their memorial service is in progress. Frank is relieved that Robin is alive, but secretly is disgusted with himself for having slept with Angelica. Robin visits Quinn in the hospital and confesses her feelings for him, but he says their lives are too different.

As Robin and Frank are about to fly back to New York, she says she does not want to get married. Frank confesses he slept with Angelica and she reveals her feelings for Quinn. They realize they are not in love and Robin returns Frank's engagement ring.

Quinn has a change of heart and rushes to the airport to find Robin, but is apparently too late. He then encounters Robin, who got off the plane before it took off and is surprised to see Quinn. Quinn confesses his feelings for her.

Cast

Production

The film was acquired by Caravan Pictures for Disney's Hollywood Pictures as a vehicle for Julia Roberts.[3] Following Roberts' departure from the film, Anne Heche was cast.[4]

The film features stunt work with aircraft. The effects were produced without CGI assistance. The crash scene of the de Havilland Beaver was performed with a Huey helicopter suspending the unmanned aircraft with a 200-foot cable with the engine running.[5]

Harrison Ford is a certified pilot and did his own flying in the film, after fulfilling the insurance company's training requirements.[6]

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Six Days, Seven Nights holds an approval rating of 37% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10. The site's critics consensus states: "A generally enjoyable, if completely forgettable piece of Hollywood fluff."[7] At Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[8] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[9]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 21⁄2-stars-out-of-4. He wrote highly of the films leads, saying Ford had "an easy appeal" and Heche exhibited "unforced charm", yet the film overall "seems cobbled together out of spare parts".[10] Leonard Maltin called the film "an entertaining romantic comedy", and gave it three out of four stars, while observing "an obvious setup is played out with great verve by the stars."[11]

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Spirituality & Practice called the film a "humorous romantic comedy" and also praised the leads: "Harrison Ford is perfectly cast as the kind of man anyone would want around in a jeopardy situation. Anne Heche displays plenty of spunk and sparkle as a woman whose life is altered by her adventures as a castaway."[12]

Box office

Six Days, Seven Nights grossed $74.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $90.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $164.8 million.

In its opening weekend the film made $16.5 million and finished in second, then made $10.7 million and $7.7 million the following two weekends.[1][2]

References

  1. 1 2 Natale, Richard (June 16, 1998). "So-So Debut for Harrison Ford in 'Six Days, Seven Nights'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on August 28, 2022. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 "Six Days, Seven Nights (1998)". Box Office Mojo. August 7, 1998. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  3. ↑ "Roberts commits to 'Days'". Variety. March 26, 1995. Archived from the original on April 11, 2022. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  4. ↑ "Heche on board for Caravan's '6 Days'". Variety. April 22, 1997. Archived from the original on August 31, 2022. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  5. ↑ Barry Shiff (April 2014). "Steve Stafford". AOPA Pilot: 112.
  6. ↑ HARRISON FORD: Just Another Pilot. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21.
  7. ↑ "Six Days, Seven Nights (1998)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  8. ↑ "Six Days, Seven Nights Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Find CinemaScore" (Type "Six Days" in the search box). CinemaScore. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  10. ↑ Ebert, Roger (June 12, 1998). "Six Days, Seven Nights". Rogerebert.com. Archived from the original on August 13, 2022. Retrieved August 13, 2022.
  11. ↑ Maltin, Leonard. 2014 Movie Guide. Penguin Books. p. 1276. ISBN 978-0-451-41810-4.
  12. ↑ Brussat, Frederic; Brussat, Mary Ann. "Six Days, Seven Nights". Spirituality & Practice. Archived from the original on June 10, 2023. Retrieved June 10, 2023.
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