Related lists from IMDb users
Title: Big Miracle (2012)
Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
 |
John Pingayak | ... | Malik |
| Ahmaogak Sweeney | ... | Nathan | |
|
|
John Chase | ... | Roy |
|
|
Ishmael Angalook Hope | ... | Bud |
|
|
Othniel 'Anaqulutuq' Oomittuk Jr. | ... | Inupiat Whaler |
| John Krasinski | ... | Adam Carlson | |
| Andrew Daly | ... | Don Davis | |
|
|
Thomas R. Daly | ... | Frank |
|
|
Maliaq Kairaiuak | ... | Dana |
|
|
Jeffrey Evan | ... | Arnold |
| Drew Barrymore | ... | Rachel Kramer | |
| Ted Danson | ... | J.W. McGraw | |
|
|
Randy Eledge | ... | Oil Man |
| Thom Van Dorp | ... | Don Carr | |
| Tim Blake Nelson | ... | Pat Lafayette | |
October, 1988. Adam Carlson, a reporter for a local Anchorage television station, is currently in Barrow doing a series of pieces on the "local cultural color" of northern Alaska. While out on the sea ice filming a less than promising piece, he spots off in the distance what ends up being three California gray whales - a mother, father and son - who are literally imprisoned by ice which has surrounded them in the earlier than usual onset of winter. They are looking worse for wear as they have been ramming the ice surface to maintain a hole in the ice to be able to breathe and thus survive. The professional and cultural assessment he receives is that the whales, in their current situation, cannot survive for more than a few days, with the ice fives miles in distance to the open ocean with a vertical ice shelf that has developed midway. Adam's piece on the whales not only gets played on his station, but is picked up by news services throughout the States, including the national ... Written by Huggo
On IMDb TV, you can catch Hollywood hits and popular TV series at no cost. Select any poster below to play the movie, totally free!
It's amazing how much good can be accomplished when a group of largely self-interested people whose primary interest is self-promotion come together for a common cause. In a way, that's really the "big miracle" of this movie. The story revolves around a family of grey whales who are trapped by thick ice in Alaska and have no way to get to the open ocean. With temperatures plummeting, the only breathing hole they have is rapidly freezing over and the whales are in danger of drowning. When a local reporter makes the situation known to the outside world, saving the whales becomes a cause celebre, and brings together a very diverse group of people.
Into the mix steps a Greenpeace organizer (Drew Barrymore) - undoubtedly committed to the whales, but also aware that the issue will get a lot of good publicity for the organization, an oil executive (Ted Danson) who wants permission to drill in a wildlife reserve and figures that saving the whales will get him a lot of good publicity, the native community of Barrow, Alaska, who would really prefer to kill the whales for food, various townsfolk who use the situation to their advantage and make lots of money with ridiculously jacked up prices as outsiders fill the town, politicians (including the Governor of Alaska and President Reagan) who know there's votes in the issue, various reporters who know there's ratings in the issue, a couple of guys from Minnesota who seize the opportunity to make their new de-icing machine known and even a Soviet ice breaker called in to help who take the opportunity to soften American attitudes toward their country.
The whales (nicknamed Fred, Wilma and Bam-Bam) become the backdrop for the story of uneasy co-operation taking place around them, but they are the real lure for the viewer, even if the most interesting part of the movie is the strange alliances being formed. There's no doubt that the viewer gets drawn into the whales' plight and you root for them all the way through.
This is based on a true story that occurred in 1988. Like most "based on a true story" movies, this one takes license with the actual events. The ending of the movie is happier than what happened in real life, which is actually a mystery, as no one knows whether the two adult whales escaped after the baby died. What I really appreciated about this was that it was a marvellous family movie - enough "meat" to keep adults interested all the way through, and an animal story that will appeal to the kids and really very little anywhere that you wouldn't want your kids to watch. I thought it was very well done, and deserving of a much higher rating than it currently has, which is 5.9. (8/10)