Alive *** (1993, Ethan Hawke, Josh Hamilton, Vincent Spano, Bruce Ramsay, John Haymes Newton, Illeana Douglas, Danny Nucci) – Classic Movie Review 13,122

The harrowing but moving 1993 real-life survival film Alive is based on the 1974 book by Piers Paul Read that follows the story of a Uruguayan rugby team’s crash aboard a Uruguay to Chile plane into the Andes mountains in 1972.

Director Frank Marshall’s harrowing but moving 1993 American biographical survival drama film Alive is based on the 1974 book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read that follows the story of a Uruguayan rugby team’s crash aboard Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 into the Andes mountains on 13 October 1972. It stars Ethan Hawke, along with Josh Hamilton, Vincent Spano, Bruce Ramsay, John Haymes Newton, Illeana Douglas, and Danny Nucci.

A group of 1970s rugby-playing Latin American schoolboys aboard a plane from Uruguay to Chile crash-lands in the Andes mountains and the survivors have to eat those who have died when the search for them is abandoned. When an avalanche kills their leader Antonio Balbi (Vincent Spano), another lad called Nando Parrado (Ethan Hawke), whose sister Susana (Ele Keats) has died, inspires the trek to find the radio batteries lost in the plane’s tail section and an epic cross-peak climb to the safety of the valley.

This sanitised version of an incredible real-life feat of endurance works competently on the disaster movie level, with mainly sterling performances from the lads (Hawke is a very believable, offbeat hero), alright trick work (though back-projections and studio exteriors are often crudely done) and a good pace for such a long, episodic film. More grimness and more answers to difficult questions would have made it more challenging and rewarding, and it does lose impetus after half way. The opening crash is dizzyingly well staged. And, ultimately, the film is moving and uplifting. So many survived against all odds.

The movie is narrated in opening monologue by an uncredited John Malkovich, who plays an older Carlitos Paez (the character played as a lad by Bruce Ramsay).

One of the FH-227 aircraft used in the production of the 1993 film Alive, painted to appear as the aircraft involved in the accident.

The names of the people who died are changed for the film, apart from Nando Parrado’s mother Eugenia and sister Susana Parrado, and Javier Methol’s wife Liliana Methol.

It is written by John Patrick Shanley, adapting the book by Piers Paul Read.

It is filmed in the Purcell Mountains in British Columbia, westernmost Canada.

Hawke’s character Nando Parrado is technical advisor on the film.

It was fairly expensive to make, at $32 million, but did surprisingly well at the box office, taking $82.5 million worldwide. Outside the US, audiences could handle this difficult story more. It did less well in North America ($36.7 million) than internationally ($45.8 million).

Roger Ebert’s idea that ‘there are some stories you simply can’t tell’ and that this may be one of them is baffling. Of course it may be a story you want to turn away from, or reject, because it is too scary or too harrowing, like Schindler’s List, for example. But that is another thing entirely.

Release date: January 15, 1993.

Alive is directed by Frank Marshall, runs 127 minutes is made by Film Andes, Touchstone Pictures and Paramount Pictures and The Kennedy/ Marshall Company, is released by Buena Vista (US) and UIP (UK), is written by John Patrick Shanley, based on the book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read, is shot by Peter James, is produced by Robert Watts and Kathleen Kennedy, is scored by James Newton Howard, is designed by Norman Reynolds, with visual special effects by Industrial Light & Magic.

The cast are

Ethan Hawke

Vincent Spano

Josh Hamilton

Bruce Ramsay

John Haymes Newton

David Kriegel

Kevin Breznahan

Sam Behrens

Illeana Douglas

Jack Noseworthy

Christian J Meoli

Jake Carpenter

Michael DeLorenzo

José Zuniga

Danny Nucci

David Cubitt

Gian DiDonna

John Cassini

Michael Woolson

Chad Willett

Richard Ian Cox

Gordon Currie

Ele Keats

Josh Lucas

Silvio Pollio

Nunu Antunes

Michael Tayles

Steven Shayler

Jason Gaffney

Jerry Wasserman

Michael Sicoly

Diana Barrington

Jan D’Arcy

Frank Pellegrino

Seth Arnett

Aurelio Dinunzio

Fiona Roeske

Tony Morelli

Pat Romano

John Malkovich.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,122

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