Title: Big Miracle

Reviewed by: Harvey Karten

Director: Ken Kwapis

Screenwriter: Jack Amiel, Michael Begler, from Thomas Rose’s book “Free the Whales”

Cast: Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Kristen Bell, Dermot Mulroney, Tim Blake Nelson, Vinessa Shaw, Ted Danson

Screened at: Sony Lincoln Square, NYC, 1/30/12

Opens: February 3, 2012

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Who would have thought that so many individuals with different cultures and conflicting ideologies could unify in the remote northern regions of Alaska, all working toward the same goals albeit for different reasons? Ken Kwapis does a great job in recreating what must have been covered in one way or another by the National Geographic Channel, employing the big screen to milk audience emotions in a movie that bears some of the tensions you might expect in a thriller. The film boasts a PG rating from the MPAA (there might of been a time that “hell” and “damn” would not have garnered such liberality). “Big Miracle,” with a screenplay by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler from Thomas Rose’s “Free the Whales,” is inspired by a true story that allegedly riveted an international TV audience in 1988.

Sentimental to a T, “Big Miracle” finds an oil man, J.W. McGraw (Ted Danson), environmentalist Rachel Kramer (Drew Barrymore), a flock of local IƱupiati people, and a group of Soviets on a barge, all putting aside their considerable differences to save three whales trapped under ice. The group had only days to cut a large gap in the ice before the small opening through which the whales surface and breathe would freeze over. In temperatures ranging from -40 to -70 Fahrenheit, a local newsman Adam Carlson (John Krasinski) and a TV reporter imported from L.A. (Kristen Bell) together with her boss (John Michael Higgins) would take part in an adventure that captured the inputs of President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachov. With the assistance of the Alaska National Guard called out by Governor Haskell (Stephen Root) and led by Col. Scott Boyer (Dermot Mulroney), the would-be saviors are cheered on by local native Malik (John Pingayak) and his extroverted grandson Nathan (Ahmaugak Sweeney).

What does a local newsman do for warmth in this sort of weather? This allows director Ken Kwapis to trot out Drew Barrymore’s Rachel, a Greenpeace volunteer who is less than diplomatic toward the people with the power to save the three whales–a woman who was dumped some time back by newsman Adam and who will obviously connect once again with the woman who, he says, drives him crazy. As for the whales, they look realistic enough but are animatronic creations made a world away in Auckland, New Zealand, but who have too many worries about survival to remember their names–baby Bamm Bamm, mother Wilma and daddy Fred. Why do Eskimos, who spear and eat whales (although not the gray whales in the cast); an fellow for whom Alaska means nothing more than a place to drill for oil; a Soviet barge during the icy days of the Cold War; the President of the United States; and an environmentalist all doing working together? Only Rachel Kramer is sincere in her love for the big creatures: for the others, it’s all PR, but who cares? As long as they get the job done.

We do learn something about the local culture and about geography. Barrow, Alaska is in the big state’s northwest, presumably an area that gets 24 hours of light in the summer and 24 hours of darkness in the winter. We get the impression that the Inuit people would have it no other way: in fact in assembling the cast, the producers auditioned the locals throughout the state, folks who speak different languages depending on their tribes. Small fry who see the movie will be most impressed by young Ahmaugak Sweeney as the hotshot grandchild, a true capitalist who takes advantage of the increased population to charge $20 for a piece of cardboard on which to stand while the local hotel, hardly a Sheraton, is getting $500 a night–no credit cards accepted.

Cameos taken from 1988–Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather, for example–give the movie an added authenticity, though Ted Danson’s rectangular glasses were probably unknown before the 1990s. Corny? Perhaps. But given that the action is on a huge screen and not on your 55-inch Sony gives the story all the punch, the humor, the sentimentality that it needs. And who knows? Maybe some of us will put aside our BlackBerries to find out more about our fellow Americans who’d rather live in Seward’s Icebox than down in Florida.

Rated PG. 107 minutes (c) 2012 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online

Story – B

Acting – B+

Technical – A-

Overall – B+

Big Miracle Movie

By admin

Managing Editor at Shockya.com, visit our About Us page for contact details.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *