SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS

US, 1998, 101 minutes, Colour.
Harrison Ford, Anne Heche, David Schwimmer, Jacqueline Obradors, Temuera Morrison, Allison Janney, Cliff Curtis, Danny Trejo.
Directed by Ivan Reitman.

Harrison Ford and Anne Heche look as if they are enjoying themselves in Six Days, Seven Nights, a play on the ads in the tourist brochures. However, while there is plenty of attractive brochure scenery, this is more like Romancing the Stone, a kind of screwball adventure. The core plot comes from the classic, The African Queen, with Harrison Ford trying to look craggy like Bogey, even pulling a raft in a river. Ford takes a rest from serious presidential and CIA actioners and flying a beaten up plane, crash landing with Heche, a glossy magazine editor, trying survival techniques and escaping pirates.

Nonsense, but pleasantly enjoyable nonsense.

1.A popular entertainment? A 1990s screwball comedy? Adventure?

2.In the tradition of The African Queen, Romancing the Stone, Heaven Knows Mr Allison? The homages to the old movies and their conventions?

3.A Harrison Ford film? The contribution of this film to his image? Comic style, action adventure?

4.The winter settings, the change to the Pacific? Location photography, rugged beauty? The musical score?

5.The action sequences, editing and pace, the flying, the boat, the jump and its effects?

6.Robyn, her style, her work, New York? Her editor? Her writing? Her relationship with Frank? Her relationship with Marjorie, going to the Pacific? The New York style, brittle? The plan and the holiday?

7.Flying, the need to write the article, Robyn to go to the other island? The decision to charter the plane? Meeting Quinn, the old plane, his being a rough around the edges type? Flying and success?

8.The holiday, the proposal, Quinn drunk, Angelica and her presence, the relationship?

9.The interruption, Quinn and his dislike of Robyn, his way of life, interested in the money? The flight, the storm and the crash?

10.The conventions of the odd couple being shipwrecked? The comic touches? The city style versus the rugged outdoors type? The complex relationship, like and dislike? The boat, the flare? Robyn and her awkwardness?

11.Survival, the peacock, the water? Going to the top of the mountain? The snake in the pants? Difficulties, humour?

12.The relationship between Robyn and Quinn, criticising each other, the boat? The coming of the pirates? The chase? The flying leap? Finding the old plane, making it work and flying it?

13.The intercutting of the sequences with Frank, his character, relationship with Robyn? The meeting with Angelica? Fidelity and infidelity?

14.The villains, their comic touch, the cutthroats, this kind of pirate villain in the Pacific? The explosion?

15.The couple presumed dead, the memorial – and their arrival?

16.Themes of true love, confessing love, or not?

17.The airport ending – and the future for Robyn? Quinn? Frank and Angelica?

18.The character of Marjorie, the New York boss, Allison Janney’s comic and sardonic style?

19.The pirates, Jaeger, Kip, their behaviour, shrewd, mishaps?

20.A screwball comedy, the 1990s, men versus women, the battle of the sexes, the complexities of life – and the spoof touch?