Though it lacks Alfred Hitchcock's wry and macabre sense of humor, DEAD CALM is a cracklingly good, cold-blooded film that never lets up in its truly Hitchcockian suspense. Under the gripping direction of Phillip Noyce, the film sustains tension and power beautifully, right through to
its startling conclusion.
Middle-aged surgeon John Ingram (Sam Neill) and his wife Rae (Nicole Kidman) embark on an extended yachting trip after the gruesome death of their little son in a car accident. The trip is intended as a therapeutic measure for the traumatized Rae. Things go well until the couple rescues Hughie
Warriner (Billy Zane), the sole survivor from a sinking schooner near the Great Barrier Reef. Warriner claims that all the other passengers died of food poisoning, but Ingram boards the schooner to investigate and makes a nasty discovery that turns their vacation into a nightmare.
Neill and Zane both turn in excellent performances, but Kidman (DAYS OF THUNDER, BILLY BATHGATE) does the most interesting and demanding work as the wife who must snap out of her melancholy distraction to outwit her vile captor. During the film's last half, Kidman convincingly transforms from a
vunerable, distraught housewife into a ferocious battler--and it's an electrifying metamorphosis. The taut editing and Noyce's direction are splendid, augmenting Terry Hayes's sharp (though somewhat predictable) script. George Miller, director of the MAD MAX trilogy and former student of Phillip
Noyce at Melbourne University, is one of the producers. leave a comment
