News for today's 2018

Captain Phillips: Take-charge thriller

6:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><b><i>Captain Phillips</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/captainphillips/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><b> </b><br /><b>4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violence and substance abuse</b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a> • </b></span>Originally published in <i><a href="http://www.davisenterprise.com/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">The Davis Enterprise</a></i>, 10.11.13</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>            <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some stories are so astonishing, they could only be true; you’d never believe them as plots in a novel.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBpyRHnZMkOY8CoPDwJM3nd2GggU65QB3WT_0QQamnn5kMKDzu1drIHa0-kUuhrj2FSybD9mRdmEtjFLjf51jhxaaFhBIzvoBot6APOM1cLvWA-3xrfcnhkgXYCF4K7oYNODLyOyZ3cQE/s1600/Captain+Phillips+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBpyRHnZMkOY8CoPDwJM3nd2GggU65QB3WT_0QQamnn5kMKDzu1drIHa0-kUuhrj2FSybD9mRdmEtjFLjf51jhxaaFhBIzvoBot6APOM1cLvWA-3xrfcnhkgXYCF4K7oYNODLyOyZ3cQE/s400/Captain+Phillips+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Utterly helpless at the hands of four heavily armed Somali pirates, Rich PHillips (Tom<br />Hanks, center) nonetheless weighs every option, primarily concerned about the safety<br />of his crew, but also — at all times — seeking a psychological edge that might allow<br />him to outwit his captors.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The credibility-stretching 2009 saga of Captain Richard Phillips and the U.S. container ship Maersk Alabama is just such a narrative, and it has become a taut, tension-laden drama in the capable hands of documentarian-turned-filmmaker Paul Greengrass. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thriller fans know Greengrass for his superlative entries in the Jason Bourne series, most notably 2004’s <i>The Bourne Supremacy</i>, by far the best of the bunch. But Greengrass also is the writer/director who uncorked <i>United 93</i> five short years after 9/11, constructing a tense, deeply unsettling real-time depiction of what likely happened that horrible day.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As with <i>United 93</i>, Greengrass’ new film is ripped from disturbing headlines, with screenwriter Billy Ray (<i>Shattered Glass</i>, <i>Breach</i>) adapting the 2010 memoir <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Captains-Duty-Somali-Pirates-Dangerous/dp/1401310443/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381429248&sr=1-1&keywords=a+captain%27s+duty+somali+pirates+navy+seals+and+dangerous+days+at+sea">A Captain’s Duty:Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS and Dangerous Days at Sea</a></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That book is written by Phillips, with an assist from Stephan Talty ... which does, by definition, dilute some of this film’s suspense. But that hardly matters; to a great degree, Phillips’ ordeal is well known by Americans who sat glued to their TV sets during five days in April 2009. The key point here is that Greengrass depicts this saga with a degree of verisimilitude, and an attention to detail, that border on documentary realism.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Add superlative performances from Tom Hanks and the actors playing his Somali captors, and the result is can’t-miss cinema: You literally won’t take your eyes off the screen.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The film opens quietly, as veteran merchant mariner Rich Phillips (Hanks) packs in anticipation of another routine assignment; we get brief face-time with his wife, Andrea (Catherine Keener), but then she’s never seen again. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Which, just in passing, might be a missed bet: Just as much drama unfolded in Vermont, as media crews bird-dogged an agonized Andrea Phillips, while she followed these events ... and I’d love to have seen the impressively talented Keener play that role. Then again, Greengrass may have felt that her end of the saga would have diluted the drama.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br />  <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Elsewhere, along the Somali coast, gun-toting thugs in the employ of a local warlord descend on the impoverished fishing village of Eyl and demand that its able-bodied inhabitants take to the sea in order to hijack another foreign vessel, the goal — maddeningly successful too many previous times — being to ransom it for millions of dollars. The none-too-subtle point is that these dirt-poor fishermen are caught between a rock and a hard place: mount the piracy expedition, or be shot for refusing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The faces blend in chaos; it will be awhile before the key Somali players distinguish themselves ... although Barkhad Abdi’s feral, cunning and unexpectedly intelligent gaze makes an immediate impression.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once underway on the heavily laden Maersk Alabama, fully aware that they’ll be traveling through the pirate-infested waters of the Somali basin, a cautious Phillips orders first mate Shane Murphy (Michael Chermus) to put the men through safety drills. The captain/crew dynamic is intriguing, in these early scenes; some of the men clearly respect and smartly obey protocol and the chain of command, while others behave like union-coddled jerks who resent not being able to stretch their coffee breaks.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everybody snaps to attention, however, when their ship’s radar detects the approach of two rapidly moving blips.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What happens next can be divided into three distinct chapters, each guaranteed to surprise viewers not intimately acquainted with this saga. The assault on the Maersk Alabama is riveting, as is Phillips’ crafty response to the crisis; he doesn’t miss a trick, despite having very little with which to work. We quickly come to admire the calm, calculating depth of Hanks’ performance; his portrayal of Phillips — by all accounts, an accurate reflection of the actual mariner — is equal parts unremarkable Everyman and quick-witted master of psychology.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We also can’t help being dismayed by the fact that Phillips and his crew are unarmed, and without at least a few trained soldiers; Somali piracy had been a well-established concern for several years by 2009, with every ship’s crew unwittingly involved in a ghastly, ocean-bound lottery. International shipping conglomerates clearly preferred to play the numbers, and risk the odds, rather than spend the money to protect individual ships. The mind doth boggle ... and although Ray’s script doesn’t blatantly name-check this heinous mind-set, the implication is clear.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Actually, Ray’s entire script is a masterpiece of nuanced subtlety, taking its cue from the way Phillips described the pirates in his book (and I’m quoting a <i>Booklist</i> review here) as “alternately conciliatory, vicious and simply not all there.” The latter results from the fact that these pirates are in a constant state of amped-up euphoria/anxiety, thanks to the amphetamine-like khat that they chew in lieu of eating.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To say the least, it makes their behavior unpredictable ... which Phillips recognizes all too quickly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eventually, the various pirates sort themselves out and only four become involved in the action. They’re led by Muse (the intense Abdi), who regards himself as a fellow captain and playfully insists on calling Phillips “Irish.” Muse is all business: He expects Phillips to call the shipping company, which will contact its insurance carrier, send along a ransom, and allow ship and crew to move along. We sense that it has gone down just this way, at least a few times, in the recent past ... but not this time.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks to Phillips’ cagy machinations — the American captain, at all times, deeply concerned about his crew — the situation quickly escalates out of Muse’s control. Meanwhile, imminent loss of life is a very real possibility, thanks to the instability of Muse’s three companions: the imposing Najee (Faysal Ahmed), with his hair-trigger temper; the taciturn Elmi (Mahat M. Ali), unexpectedly handy as a mechanic; and the youthful Bilal (Barkhad Abdirahman), wholly out of his depth.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All four — Abdi, Ahmed, Ali and Abdirahman — are first-time actors, selected from among more than 1,000 candidates living in the States’ largest Somali-American community, in Minneapolis, Minn. Their performances are authentic — and subtly complex — to an astonishing degree. We simultaneously loathe and pity these four men, and in a way almost admire their utterly insane courage, as they attempt to take command of this huge ship — and, later, defy what seems like the entire U.S. Navy — all by themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But make no mistake: Greengrass and Ray do not sugar-coat these pirates. They’re dangerously ruthless, unexpectedly violent and prone to irrational, drug-hazed behavior; they obviously wouldn’t lose any sleep after killing an American or three. (Well ... Bilal might grieve a little.) But it would be wrong to call them evil; that label more accurately applies to the much-feared Somali warlord Garaad, who orders the assault.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The closest Ray’s script comes to moralizing occurs during a brief exchange between Phillips and Muse, late in game. “There must be more than fishing and kidnapping,” Phillips desperately insists, subtly referencing the fact that Somali piracy grew in response to illegal over-fishing and the dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters, which deprived coastal villagers of their livelihoods.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Maybe in America,” Muse replies, the bitterness evident in his voice.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Max Martini is appropriately crisp and commanding as the SEAL officer who enters the final round of what eventually becomes an ocean-bound circus; Yul Vazquez is quietly efficient as Frank Castellano, commander of the USS Bainbridge, the Navy destroyer initially sent to negotiate a peaceful solution to the mounting crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just in passing — between this film and last year’s <i><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2013/01/zero-dark-thirty-ultimate-manhunt.html">Zero Dark Thirty</a></i> — Navy SEALS never have looked so good. I fully expect recruitment to take an upward bump.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always, Greengrass surrounds himself with equally accomplished technicians, starting with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd — Oscar-nominated for <i><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2009/07/hurt-locker-explosive-drama.html">The Hurt Locker</a></i> — who works impressive magic during difficult night shoots and the confined, narrow hallways of the container ship. The result is solid <i>cinema verité</i> and intensely real.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Academy Award-winning editor Christopher Rouse (for <i>The Bourne Ultimatum</i>) similarly tightens the screws, deftly shifting between the varying perspectives of Phillips and Muse, each a casualty of circumstances. Eventually, this cross-cutting grows to include various Navy personnel, but the narrative landscape never gets cluttered, and the tension never flags.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hollywood often gets rapped, justifiably, for the way factual events are distorted on the big screen. Although Greengrass takes a few dramatic liberties here, he nonetheless distills a significant bit of recent history into a socio-political document that analyzes cultural disenfranchisement, in 134 minutes, far better than any lengthy textbook is likely to do, in years to come. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of which, Greengrass also delivers a rousing, suspenseful and thoroughly engaging drama that is certain to garner numerous Oscar nominations, starting with Hanks.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When cynics insists that movies are too commercial to be regarded as art, <i>Captain Phillips</i> is a great way to prove them wrong.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>

Captain Phillips (2013) • View trailer 4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violence and substance abuse By Derrick Bang ...

Kon-Tiki: Spirited but superficial

1:00 AM Tukiyooo 0

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>Kon-Tiki</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2012) • <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4DZ7svBw7I" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and needlessly, for dramatic intensity</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a></b></span></b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>            <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thor Heyerdahl’s Oscar-winning 1950 documentary about his famed ocean voyage was a frequent attraction during my grade school and middle school years; I must have seen it at least three times before hitting my teens.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgo0sK_cu0q-dez1tOvIC1HuyQb0099wvAYpecoyj2UspuwQoRIQcehmKeUJrOsOY0wpKu52rhj0c628skGEN7NY41ICDTTvwyrqoUDeC_t2GT8bKVgow5BwouaDB2c7L8mxjdllqmcl8/s1600/Kon+Tiki+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgo0sK_cu0q-dez1tOvIC1HuyQb0099wvAYpecoyj2UspuwQoRIQcehmKeUJrOsOY0wpKu52rhj0c628skGEN7NY41ICDTTvwyrqoUDeC_t2GT8bKVgow5BwouaDB2c7L8mxjdllqmcl8/s400/Kon+Tiki+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Enraged by the constant presence of the always dangerous sharks, Torstein (Jakob<br />Oftebro, left) and Knut (Tobias Santelmann) foolishly decided to kill one of the<br />predatory creatures.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also read Heyerdahl’s published account of the expedition — 1948’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft</i> — and noted that articles about him were fairly common in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National Geographic</i>in the 1960s and early ’70s (which is deliciously ironic, given the magazine’s initial refusal to treat him seriously).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I therefore approached the new dramatized account of Heyerdahl’s 101-day journey on a balsa wood raft — Norway’s recent nominee for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award (losing to Austria’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amour</i>) — like a reunion with a long-unseen friend. And, on that level, this new <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kon-Tiki</i> does not disappoint.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg have crafted a respectful, detail-laden account of Heyerdahl’s voyage that plays very much like a valentine: quite similar to the family-friendly tone Brian Helgeland gives Jackie Robinson’s story, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">42</i>. This worshipful atmosphere is amplified by the almost saintly aura that star Pål Sverre Hagen gives his reading of Heyerdahl; once granted the months-at-sea affectation of a scraggly beard, and the Christ-like framing by cinematographer Geir Hartly Andreassen, we almost expect a halo to appear over Hagen’s head.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OK, so Heyerdahl’s messianic qualities are larded on rather thickly, but I suppose we can forgive everybody concerned; after all, the famed explorer remains one of Norway’s most cherished native sons.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The performances are heartfelt and credible, and the film certainly captures both the adventurous spirit and eventual doubts experienced by Heyerdahl and his five companions, as the journey progresses. But scripter Petter Skavlan is much better at back-story and laying the groundwork for the Kon-Tiki’s trip, than in conveying the day-after-grinding-day reality of their experiences, once the raft is launched.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of which, several sequences feel like Hollywood-ized peril, clearly exaggerated for dramatic impact. Such moments give the film an embroidered, boys-own-adventure aura: unfortunate, when an unvarnished depiction of these events should have been sufficiently absorbing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br />  <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heyerdahl and his wife, Liv (Agnes Kittelsen), are introduced in 1937, during their yearlong research trip to Fatu Hiva, a tiny island in the Marquesas group in the middle of the Pacific. This initial study of Polynesia, a collaboration with the University of Oslo’s zoological facility, hoped to reveal how a previously deserted Pacific island’s flora and fauna could have reached it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It must have been a magical year for this young Norwegian couple, essentially living alone during their research in paradise, and this film deftly sketches both Thor and Liv’s loving and collaborative relationship, and Thor’s growing interest in a new theory. Conventional wisdom at the time suggested that Polynesia had been populated, long ago, by people from Southeast Asia; Heyerdahl became convinced that ocean currents and prevailing winds suggested something else.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The crucial moment, lifted for this film directly from Heyerdahl’s book, comes when a Polynesian elder quite dramatically insists that “Tiki” brought his ancestors to the islands. In Heyerdahl’s mind, that points to Peru.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, he faces an uphill battle, while trying to gain acceptance for this belief. Years pass, during which he is ignored or dismissed by publishers, universities and, yes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National Geographic</i>. Undeterred but now convinced that he’ll gain credibility in only one way, Heyerdahl decides to reproduce one of the voyages that he believes must have taken place 1,500 years earlier, and do so down to the last detail.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meaning, the raft must be built only with materials that would have been available to those ancient peoples.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heyerdahl constructs this ungainly craft with a team of four experienced colleagues: radio experts Knut Haugland (Tobias Santelmann) and Torstein Raaby (Jakob Oftebro), Swedish sociologist Bengt Danielsson (Gustaf Skarsgård) and navigator Erik Hesselberg (Odd Magnus Williamson). They name their craft the Kon-Tiki, after the Inca sun god. (It would be nice to understand how Heyerdahl knows these men, and comes to select them, but that’s one of many details Skavian’s script glosses over.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They’re joined by engineer-turned-refrigerator salesman Herman Watzinger (Anders Baasmo Christiansen), an “average Joe” sort who befriends Heyerdahl and embraces the expedition for the “thrill of adventure.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The roly-poly Watzinger is employed as this saga’s weak psychological link: a well-meaning, likable fellow who hasn’t the faintest idea what he has let himself in for. It could be argued that this depiction is both unkind and unfair, since we get the impression that Watzinger is quite useless during this journey, when in real life he collected and recorded valuable weather data about the then-unstudied Pacific.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The raft’s seventh member is Raaby’s pet parrot, Lorita, which — on at least one occasion — creates the sort of mischief one would expect from a 1960s Disney comedy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once past the jubilant glow that briefly lingers after they begin the journey, the men fall into a routine of observation, logbook entries and efforts to maneuver their ungainly raft. Early problems are what we would expect: storms and dangerous ocean swells, ever-present sharks and boredom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Additional tension results from Skavlan’s distortion of actual events, starting with a malfunctioning radio that rarely seems to work ... at least, according to what we watch here. This belies the regular broadcasts that Haugland and Raaby made to American, Canadian and South American stations, which relayed the transmissions to the Norwegian Embassy in Washington, D.C.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hesselberg also worries, day by passing day, that they’re heading northwest, rather than the desired west/southwest that will allow their raft to be embraced by the crucial South Equatorial Current: essentially an ocean expressway to Polynesia. Heyerdahl advises patience and faith, Hagen’s piercing blue eyes taking on an obsessive, mildly unsettling quality as the explorer stubbornly clings to his convictions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At about the same time, Watzinger announces that their huge balsa wood logs — the essential framework of their raft — are absorbing water at a dangerous rate, with stray balsa chips becoming heavy enough to sink. Clearly, this is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">very</i>serious issue ... and yet we never get closure. Do Heyerdahl and his companions solve this problem? Ignore it? Impossible to say, because...<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...once the Kon-Tiki finally, happily, slides into the South Equatorial Current, the saga jumps forward several months, to the raft’s climactic arrival in Polynesia.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If this narrative leap feels abrupt and absurdly jarring, you’re not imagining things. Rønning and Sandberg made a 118-minute film, but this American release — courtesy of the Weinstein Company — has been abbreviated to 101 minutes. Clearly, some essential details have been left behind. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s shameful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Santelmann, Oftebro, Skarsgård and Williamson look and sound right for their respective roles, although we don’t get much in the way of character development. At times, Heyerdahl’s strongest relationship appears to be with a small Peruvian crab that has hitched a ride on the raft, becoming a living example of how one species could travel 4,300 nautical miles to make a new home.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hagen’s Heyerdahl gets the lion’s share of Skavlan’s character exposition, particularly during the lengthy first act, as the explorer refines his theory and mounts the expedition. Hagen is wholly credible as a determined researcher who won’t back down, his slightly mocking smile greeting each setback with ever-greater determination.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ironically, modern DNA theory and other scientific studies have reaffirmed the original belief regarding Polynesians having ancestors from Southeast Asia, but of course that doesn’t diminish the adventurous awesomeness of Heyerdahl’s journey by raft. And his expedition certainly proves that South American natives <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i> have made a similar trip.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If this film — particularly our bowdlerized American cut — too often feels like the gentled-down cinematic equivalent of a young adult novel, well, that also doesn’t lessen Heyerdahl’s contributions to world knowledge (and let’s not forget that he would go on to make many more expeditions, before dying in 2002, at the age of 87). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps this <i>Kon-Tiki</i> best can be considered a jumping-off point, designed to encourage today’s generation — no doubt unfamiliar with Heyerdahl — to track down the memoir and documentary that were so ubiquitous half a century ago.</span></span>