They were fighting over a woman when the plane went down. Now, their only chance for survival is each other.
1997-09-06
$30.0M
117 min
The plane carrying wealthy Charles Morse crashes down in the Alaskan wilderness. Together with the two other passengers, photographer Robert and assistant Stephen, Charles devises a plan to help them reach civilization. However, his biggest obstacle might not be the elements, or even the Kodiak bear stalking them -- it could be Robert, whom Charles suspects is having an affair with his wife and would not mind seeing him dead.
In a nutshell: A vastly underrated thriller / adventure with great performances from Hopkins and Baldwin. After about a third of the way in, it's a two man show with excellent pacing, you will not be disappointed...
Sir Anthony Hopkins is billionaire "Charles" who finds himself stranded in the Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash leaves him, his friend "Robert" (Alec Baldwin) and his assistant "Stephen" (Harold Perrineau) in the middle of nowhere - and a fairly hostile nowhere at that! Fortunately, he was a boy scout as a kid - he knows how to light a fire, to make a compass from a leaf and so armed with a somewhat optimistically stoic attitude they set off to find civilisation. Not long into their journey, they pick up an unwanted guest - a 1,200lb Kodiak bear - and it is as hungry as they are lost. It will take all of their ingenuity to outsmart this hunter and reach safety. Along the way, we also discover there is just a little bit of a personal grudge running between the two friends, adding an additional tension to their already fraught predicament. It's a good looking film this, and "Bart" the bear turns in quite a ferocious effort as he provides such of the menace in this drama. Sadly, though, neither lead actor offers much by way of a performance, the dialogue is all a bit basic and though the grand scale photography is great to look at, the action stuff struggles to look real or plausible. The ending really lets the thing down quite badly, and though I didn't mind watching this film, I can't say I could recommend it nor that I would watch it again.
