Monday, June 21, 2010

Banana A Day – The Day of the Dolphin

Unwittingly he trained a dolphin to kill the president of the United States. That is the tag line for the 1973 film The Day of the Dolphin. Based on the ridiculousness of the tag line you would think this film would be a cheesy masterpiece. That was the assumption I had about the movie and it turns out I was very wrong. Day of the Dolphin treats its story as serious as cancer. Directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Charlie Wilsons War), this movie features a talking dolphin and is not meant to be funny. George C Scott is Dr. Jake Terrell a guy who has been training Dolphins to speak and understand English and wants it kept a secret. He has had success with a dolphin named Fa. Paul Sorvino plays Curtis Mahoney a man whose motives for investigating Dr Jake's Dolphin aren't quite clear. That is the amount of story that is told in the first hour of the film. That's it. The whole assassination part of the story doesn't come into play until the end of the film and it is such a small part of the story doesn't even seem necessary. This is really unfortunate because seeing a dolphin kill the president of the United States is something I would be very interested in seeing. This movie is much too serious for its own good, and aside from having an amazing tagline, this film does not have much going for it. Skip this film if you are looking for a laugh. You are more likely to tear up over the final conversation between George C Scott and the Dolphin.

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