Welcome to The Best Movie You NEVER Saw, a column dedicated to examining films that have flown under the radar or gained traction throughout the years, earning them a place as a cult classic or underrated gem that was either before it’s time and/or has aged like a fine wine.
This week we’ll be looking at Phillip Noyce’s DEAD CALM starring Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, and Billy Zane!
THE STORY:
An Australian couple take a sailing trip in the Pacific to forget about a terrible accident. While on the open sea, in dead calm, they come across a ship with one survivor who is not at all what he seems.
THE PLAYERS:
Based on the novel by Charles Williams, the film is directed by Phillip Noyce (PATRIOT GAMES, RABBIT-PROOF FENCE) and stars Nicole Kidman as Rae, Sam Neill as her husband, John, and Billy Zane as the sociopathic Hughie.
THE HISTORY:
Orson Welles originally intended to make DEAD CALM and even shot some of it in the late ‘60’s (but never completed). Director/producer George Miller (MAD MAX) swayed the rights from Welles’ girlfriend, Oja Kodar, and set Phillip Noyce to direct. They assembled the cast, plucking fresh-faced Kidman, who was not yet even 20 years old, to play the wife of Sam Neill, who was nearly 40. After securing Billy Zane as Hughie, they set off to shoot the film in the Whitsunday Islands in the winter of 1987.
Initially, the film ended with some question as to what happened to Zane’s character and the studio decided to have a new one shot to give a more definitive answer for fear of audience backlash. Ultimately, the new ending served to be a more fun and over-the-top finale, and may have actually been a case where studio involvement helped a film, as the ending is one of the more memorable sequences.
DEAD CALM opened on April 7, 1989 and pulled in a decent $7.8 million domestically. It was a mostly well-received film critically, sitting at 82 percent on RT, with a lot of praise going to Kidman for her performance. Tom Cruise certainly took notice as it prompted him to hire her for DAYS OF THUNDER and then, y’know, marry her. The film was mostly discovered on video and is oft-remembered for both Kidman’s breakout performance and Zane’s intense villain role.
“She [Kidman] was, however, not even 20, and Sam Neill, who had already been cast as her husband, was almost 40. To make that match look realistic, Nicole worked with a voice coach for four months and with a movement coach. She was just a kid, just a teenager. She changed the pitch of her voice and she spent a lot of time with young mothers, and changed the way she walked. It was a dramatic transformation. In the movie, you see a husband and wife who are, in real life, 20 years apart, but they seem matched.” – Phillip Noyce
WHY IT’S GREAT:
I saw DEAD CALM at a young age, just at the onset of puberty to be exact, which probably influenced my affection for it at the time, due largely to the film’s star, Nicole Kidman. It was the “sounding horn” role for Kidman and the one that would transport her to American audiences and eventually make her a household name. Sporting her then trademark wiry red hair, Aussie accent, and strong, yet innocent features, Kidman is the true star of DEAD CALM and it’s impossible to not only fall in love with her in the film, but to root for her salvation. If nothing else, DEAD CALM is worth seeing just to watch the birth of a star.
However, Kidman isn’t the only good thing DEAD CALM has going for it. For one, you have Sam Neill, who is always an amiable presence, and for two, you have an insanely perfect Billy Zane, playing the role of the severely unstable Hughie. Aside from these solid performers, you have the setting, which is nothing more than the “dead calm” waters of the title and a couple of boats. That’s it. The meat of the film rests solely on the tension created with those few elements and it’s deftly handled by director Phillip Noyce.
“It seemed to me if we could create dead calm conditions on film, that is, a fully placid surface of the water; windless, almost a mirror surface, no waves. The very stillness of this would just naturally produce tension, because nothing is happening and so you’re always on edge because you expect that something will happen.” – Phillip Noyce
Now, I don’t want to oversell it. DEAD CALM isn’t the best thriller you’ll ever see, but it’s a damn good one and features some truly awesome moments of intensity that will leave you wincing with anxiety. It has all the makings of a Lifetime made-for-TV movie, but is elevated substantially by the performances, the cinematography, taut direction, and a rousing score by composer Greame Revell (his first feature score).
What I like about DEAD CALM is that it’s fairly simple in terms of story, but feels way more complex as things escalate. At the opening of the film we see Kidman’s Rae in a tragic car accident on her way to pick up her husband, John (Sam Neill), who happens to be a Naval Officer. Distraught and grieving, the two set sail in an effort to help Rae recover from her collision. There’s a sense of unease between the two, which is understandable, but before they can even begin to confront their issues, they spot a distressed yacht nearby.
"You sound so much like them, Rae, it's scary!" – Hughie (Billy Zane)
At the same time they see a man in a paddleboat coming toward them like he’s trying to outrun a shark. Enter Billy Zane’s Hughie; Neurotic, shivering, and erratic, Hughie rambles on about the boat being in trouble before passing out. Neill, ever the dutiful sailor, decides to check out the troubled yacht with Zane safely locked in a cabin. Taking the paddleboat, John makes his way to the yacht and discovers much more than he anticipated, but by then it’s too late. Hughie has awoken and broken free, taking control of their ship and leaving John to his own devices.
This is where DEAD CALM kicks into high gear and really makes its money. Kidman and Zane are cat and mouse, each trying to outwit, outsmart, and seduce one another to get what they want. Zane, in his sociopathic glory, wants merely to get away and take John’s place with Rae. Rae simply wants to get her husband back. After a number of back and forth struggles, compromises, and an intense seduction, the film ramps up into that territory I like to refer to as the “what would you do?” scenario. It’s the fun of watching these kinds of films, where you place yourself in the shoes of the protagonist (hopefully) taking into consideration their situation and decide what you would do if faced with a similar circumstances. DEAD CALM is a lot of fun that way, be it for either Kidman or Neill’s character.
“He [Billy Zane} believed throughout his whole performance that he was the good guy and that Nicole and Sam were the bad ones. He played it believing that he was the one that had been done badly by and there was something was wrong with them. And I think that’s a marvelous approach. Often, more so in this particular part where there’s so much emphasis on it, if a bad guy plays everything one note you kinda get sick of him and more so, as I say, in this role. But, here he is, charming as all hell, there’s no guilt in his eyes because he believes that whatever happened on that other boat, even if some people may have died, it wasn’t his fault.” – Phillip Noyce
Zane is an absolute blast in this. Crazy, yes, but one of the better roles of his career and certainly more fun than the stuck-up bad guy of TITANIC. He spends the film mostly in shorts and with Dwayne Johnson level sweat pouring off his body, while bringing a blitz of batshit nutso to the role. He’s a calculating kind of crazy, though, and full of charm, so much so that you almost want him to somehow turn it around and regain his sanity. Alas, that card isn’t in the deck.
The cinematography by Dean Semler is gorgeous and he shoots the close-ups much tighter than usual, which heightens the tension, making you feel trapped in close quarters with these characters. Graeme Revell’s score is pulsating and creepy at once with a really badass chorus that kicks in when things get especially hairy. Those two elements play such an instrumental role here and are exigent in the film’s success.
The reshot ending of the film may seem over-the-top or cheesy, but I still love it. It’s a satisfying (and creative) conclusion to Zane’s character and you still get the fulfillment of Rae’s arc being complete (i.e. overcoming the odds). DEAD CALM ends up being a fun little thriller and one that I was exceptionally pleased to revisit. Oftentimes, you find that the films you loved growing up don’t quite stand the test of time, but I got wrapped up in Rae and John’s struggle once again and felt that old boyhood crush for Kidman rekindle. Neill, who I will always see as JURASSIC PARK’s Dr. Grant, is an easy guy to root for and Zane is such a devilishly good villain; this is a thriller that, no matter its silliness, hits all the right notes of the genre and is elevated further by watching Kidman kick off a tremendous career that followed.
"We felt the audience could identify more with a young woman, because, in a kind of rite-of-passage, she goes from weakness to power, from girlhood to womanhood, from loss to re-growth." – Phillip Noyce
BEST SCENE:
It’s hard to pinpoint one single scene here. If you asked me at age 12 I’d tell you the seduction scene that reveals Kidman’s naughty bits, but to give you the best sense of the tension in the film, I think the initial turning point that sets up the major conflict is the key scene. The realization that Hughie isn’t what he seems puts both Rae and John in motion to act quickly, but it isn’t quick enough and sets up the second act of the film nicely.
SEE IT:
DEAD CALM is available on multiple platforms, including iTunes, Amazon instant, and DVD and Blu-Ray. Get your copy here (for less than $7 bucks!)