Peter Benchley

  • The Island (1980)

    The Island (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2021) Michael Caine’s career is so long and varied that his filmography has anything and everything in it, from the best to the worst. Fortunately, he’s usually charismatic enough to make even the terrible films somewhat watchable, and it’s that spirit that does sustain The Island through its dodgier moments. Caine here plays a journalist who, while investigating the Bermuda Triangle (remember that?), discovers a long-lost colony of pirates cut off from the world but with a steady job of hijacking ships. The ludicrousness of the concept can’t readily be assigned to the usual studio meddling — the screenplay is by novelist Peter Benchley adapting his own novel. But if the result is too contrived to be believable, the entire thing has its rewards — notably a climactic sequence in which a teeth-clenching Caine machine-guns an entire crew of pirates. It’s not much, but it’s an anthology moment for his fans. Otherwise, director Michael Ritchie’s The Island is forgettable early-1980s fluff, not entirely sure of its tone (horror or thriller?) and too far-fetched to be taken seriously.

  • The Deep (1977)

    The Deep (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, December 2020) The production history of The Deep is almost more interesting than the film itself: Hot from the massive success of Jaws, author Peter Benchley’s next novel was quickly snapped up by Hollywood and turned into a summer tentpole film. Underwater filming in the newest widescreen colour format required new cameras and lighting systems, and much of the film was shot using the real actors (albeit in underwater sets requiring no deep dive). The result was… well, an acceptable thriller. The contrivances are significant (requiring criminals to take an interest in recovered WW2 morphine and one wreck lying atop another much older wreck with Spanish treasure) but the film is generally well executed. Setting counts for a lot in even run-of-the-mill thrillers, and underwater diving was a bit of a novelty at the time (although reprised a few times since then). Nick Nolte is pretty good as one of the co-leads, but Jacqueline Bisset steals the show with an opening sequence in a wet white T-shirt (an image so famous that there’s a very, very complete blog post about it). It all combines into a capable underwater thriller, perhaps not as remarkable now as it was back then, but still an entertaining-enough 1970s blockbuster film with some very good cinematography.