Still smarting from the spectacular disappointments Father's Day and Junior, director Ivan Reitman needed a hit badly. In casting Six Days, Seven Nights, he took out Hollywood's living insurance policy, Harrison Ford, a big time star who might have even been able to open Ishtar. For the female lead, he chose Anne Heche--did her declaration of love for Ellen DeGeneres cancel out the positive baggage that Ford brought to the film? Probably, but this doesn't mean that Six Days, Seven Nights is some buried treasure you'd be lucky to discover at the video store. Rather, it's a hackjob adventure-comedy-romance thing that doesn't have a lot to going for it beyond a noteworthy above-the-title cast. Let's be honest: Reitman hasn't made a good movie since Ghostbusters, and he'll require more than just assistance from an icon if he's ever going to hit paydirt again.

Heche and David Schwimmer play big city yuppie types. Island vacation. Schwimmer proposes. Romance is in the air. Lesuirus interruptus for business reasons. Drunkard pilot Ford must transport Heche to the mainland in his rickety biplane. That Schwimmer decides not to join her on the return flight requires a strong suspension of disbelief. Storm. Crash. Stranded on an uncharted atoll. Blue Lagoon-esque hijinks ensue--sorta.

To say Six Days, Seven Nights is predictable is to miss the point: would you really see this movie expecting different? It's a "shipwreck" pic featuring an attractive, half-dressed couple. (Wouldn't it have been great if said boozy pilot had been played by, say, John Goodman, and his new lady friend by Gloria Stuart? Now that would test the "men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way" theory.) For a while, the film coasts on the charms of its principals: I know Tom Cruise isn't a sports agent, but that doesn't make Jerry Maguire any less enjoyable. Likewise, who cares if Anne Heche is a Libyan? She's an actor, first and foremost. I believed that she and Ford's character had grown to like each other--too bad this wasn't an Indiana Jones movie, because she's a good foil for Ford's cantankerousness.

About halfway through the movie, though, the very Reitman-ness of the picture shines through, as armed pirates pursue our heroic couple with M-16s and the like. Welcome to Story Padding 101: Father's Day incorporated drug dealers into its plot, Junior evil doctors, Kindergarten Cop a nasty homicidal maniac, Twins a convoluted money caper... What is a high concept if it can't sustain 90 minutes of screentime? Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger as genetically manipulated twin brothers searching for their birth mother needs more story?

One final complaint about Six Days, Seven Nights, then the prosecution rests: what should have been the last line of the picture, delivered beautifully by Ford, isn't. I may have even elevated my rating another half-star had Reitman the courage to fade out ten seconds sooner. It's a cheap movie.

Transfer-wise, the Six Days, Seven Nights DVD, its lack of 16x9 enhancement aside, has few strikes against it. Its picture is so true and brilliant , I can write with a straight face that on my 32" 4:3 television certain chapters of this disc looked as good as the format ever has. The image is letterboxed, and though it was shot in scope, the telecine folks have opened up the aspect ratio a bit--it hovers around 2.2:1. There were no glaring signs of this cropping, no moments when characters drifted just slightly out of the frame. Bright exterior scenes are reproduced the best (as is usually the case), but even the grainless night scenes should stun you. This is the ideal venue for Michael Chapman's impressive, restrained cinematography--he's usually stuck shooting an urban setting (such as Taxi Driver's steamy streets), and here he proves himself adept at framing postcard-worthy pictures.

The DD 5.1 mix on this disc is solid--nice separation effects, good bass (the rolling thunder was impressive), and those cannon blasts near the end of the picture are very loud. The DD is ultimately as imaginative as the film, though--ample opportunities for a deep sound field were missed. (The only wildlife these two encounter in a junglescape: a snake and a pig.) Extras include a soft-focused trailer at 1.85:1 and some feeble title recommendations; your standard no-frills, inflated-cost Buena Vista disc.-Bill Chambers