Banner: The American Film Company
Producer: Brian Falk, Kurt Graver & Mark Moran
Director: Brian Falk
Cast: Tom Felton, Jake Abel, Garret Dillahunt & Nadia Parra
Music: Paul Mills
Director Brian Falk in his latest offering ‘Against The Sun’ has tackled a very experimentally oriented arty tale about 3 Navy airmen stranded in a raft in Pacific Ocean and the turmoil they under go in tandem with the trials & the tribulations for survival at Sea for almost 40 days. The credibility of the movie ‘Against The Sun’ is palatable as it is based on a true story, but of course it bears an uncanny resemblance to Angelina Jolie’s movie ‘Unbroken’ released not so long ago in the past. That apart it also seems to be heavily inspired by a black & white classic movie of the 60’s era whose name I cannot recollect.
Just picture, the stranded in a raft scenario (Circa 1942), of 3 US Navy airmen who accidentally crash land their torpedo bomber in the South Pacific during World War II and find themselves on a tiny life raft, surrounded by open blue ocean with not a morsel of food to satiate their pangs of hunger, not a single drop of water to quench their thirst, so much so that one of the airmen takes recourse to drinking his own piss, besides they do not even see a faint ray of hope of rescue. Against incredible odds, these 3 virtual strangers survive storms, sharks, starvation and above all each other, as they try to sail more than a thousand miles to safety. The American Film Company’s ‘Against The Sun’ tells the true story of an air crew who had to take to the life raft after their plane went down in the Pacific Ocean. The 3 man crew was presumed missing at sea, after a cursory “box search” was done for them. So ‘Against The Sun’ is a respectfully told survivalist tale of pilot Harold Dixon (Garret Dillahunt), bombardier Tony Pastula (Tom Felton), & radioman Gene Aldrich (Jake Abel).
‘Against The Sun’ takes place almost entirely in the life raft, with a short prologue showing the crew’s final moments in the plane when they realize that they have somehow flown off course and don’t even have enough fuel to get back to the aircraft carrier.
Director Brian Falk’s sensitive directorial touches do strike a chord in your heart with a silent prayer on your lips that God – The Almighty – forbid that not even the worst of your enemy should pass through such a sordid ordeal. The trio of director Brian Falk in lieu with his co – script writer Mark David Keegan, cinematographer Petr Cikhart & editor Sean Albertson certainly deserves a left handed complement for keeping the scenario visually interesting, despite the limitations placed on the tale by the monotonous setting. But the same cannot be said about the musical score of Paul Mills which sometimes seem unnecessarily jarring to the extent of disrupting the flow of the entire proceedings. That apart the entire well – deserved credit goes to Aghor Raj Production Pvt Ltd to import & distribute a good cinema in India for which there are hardly any takers in the Indian Distribution arena.
Performance wise all the 3 characters namely Tom Felton as Tony Pastula, Jake Abel as Gene Aldrich & Garret Dillahunt as Harold Dixon have delivered a picture perfect par excellence performance mainly with their body language and silently gestured expressions. A special mention goes for the 4th character Nadia Parra as Frances who appears a couple of times as one of the Navy officers day dreaming fantasy.
Tailpiece: If you are a lover of good cinema, then this is the fare for you.
