Against the Sun (2014)
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Three US Navy airmen must endure 34 days adrift on a tiny life raft in the South Pacific after their torpedo bomber ditches.
The story
On January 16, 1942, US Navy airmen Harold Dixon, Tony Pastula, and Gene Aldrich encounter problems during a patrol mission over the South Pacific in a Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber. After becoming separated from other aircraft and running low on fuel, Dixon decides to head back to the carrier, USS Enterprise. The crew is forced to ditch the plane in the ocean, leaving them stranded on a tiny life raft. With no oars, maps, food, or water, the three men face the daunting reality of being 'lost at sea' as they begin to drift across the open ocean.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
On January 16, 1942, US Navy airmen Harold Dixon, Tony Pastula, and Gene Aldrich are on a patrol mission over the South Pacific when their Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber encounters problems. After ditching the aircraft, the three men are left on a tiny life raft with no oars, maps, food, or water. As they drift, they face extreme starvation and dehydration, eventually forced to eat shark meat, their own hair, and lice, and to drink their own urine. Tensions rise when Aldrich accuses Dixon of falling asleep, causing them to get lost. Despite these hardships, they manage to survive for 34 days, drifting over 1,000 miles. After enduring severe skin trauma from the sun and a dangerous storm, they finally spot land and wash ashore on the island of Pukapuka. The film concludes by revealing that Dixon was awarded the Navy Cross, Tony died in 1986, and Aldrich married Tony's sister in 1946.
- First release year
- 2014
- Runtime (minutes)
- 99
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Brian Falk
- Writers
- Brian Falk · writer; Mark David Keegan · writer
- Cast and characters
- Garret Dillahunt · pilot Harold Dixon; Tom Felton · bombardier Tony Pastula; Jake Abel · radioman Gene Aldrich; Nadia Parra · Frances (Tony's sister); Quinton Flynn · Newsreel narrator
- Genres
- survival drama; disaster; adventure
- Themes
- survival; endurance; heroism; humanity under pressure
- Tone and mood
- tense; survivalist; historical
- Setting
- South Pacific Ocean, 1942
- Premise and plot tags
- true story; World War II; aviation accident; survival at sea
- Source material / true-story basis
- true story
- Reception
- The film received mixed reviews from critics, with a 67% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 43/100 on Metacritic. The Los Angeles Times described it as admirable but compared it unfavorably to the film Unbroken.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 67% · review count: 9; Metacritic · score: 43 · scale: 100 · review count: 5
- Production trivia
- The cast underwent a strict diet of 500 calories daily to show the emaciated state of the survivors.; The emergency life raft was later sent to Pearl Harbor and is currently on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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