After years of training and observation, Alpha begins to speak rudimentary English.
Jake’s work with Alpha draws attention from a secret cabal who kidnap both dolphins.
While Jake tries to figure out where Alpha and Beta are, the villains are training the dolphins for a new and terrifying mission…
This movie is being reviewed because of its poster - namely the juxtaposition of George C. Scott’s scowl and the tagline in giant, un-ironic font: UNWITTINGLY, HE TRAINED A DOLPHIN TO KILL THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
My local arthouse theatre was hosting a screening so I was going to review it on the big screen. Other events intervened and I missed it, so this review will be the result of me watching it in my empty kitchen on a laptop screen.
Combining two key themes of the seventies - government corruption and animal rights - Day of the Dolphin should be right up my alley (it is Day of the Jackal with Flipper!), but it fell short of its glorious tagline.
Written by Buck Henry and directed by Mike Nichols (the team behind The Graduate), The Day of the Dolphin has a great pedigree, but this movie is the wrong project for their particular talents. Apparently the result of contractual obligation, Mike Nichols directs the film with little specificity.
The film is in a weird middle way - is it a story about the relationship between Jake and Alpha? A spy thriller? An action adventure?
There is no sense of momentum to the story-telling, and frustratingly, there is a lot of story conveyed through dialogue.
A prime example is how Jake’s team figures out where the bad guys are - Curtis Mahoney (Paul Sorvino) wakes up on top of a map, looks at said map and has an eureka moment. It is so underwhelming.
The filmmakers cannot even make a meal from the attempted assassination, as Alpha chases after Beta to stop her from approaching the president’s boat. We just get slack cross-cutting between footage of swimming dolphins, which is so vague in composition and editing that it looks like a b-roll from a nature documentary.
And despite the pedigree of its writer and director, the film is almost completely bereft of humour.
There are a few positives:
As the main star, Scott lends his role and subject a certain gravitas, although he seems to be on autopilot.
Georges Delerue provides the lyrical, melancholic score - I wish there was more of it, because this movie lacks energy and it provides a modicum of interest.
The ending is kind of affecting - after telling him he can never see him again, Jake sadly walks away from the shore while Alpha tries to call to him.
But those elements are relatively minor - The Day of the Dolphin is sadly a snooze.
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