''Old Explorers'' is a 1990 American

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

film directed by Bill Pohlad and adapted from a stage play of the same name by James Cada and Mark Keller. It stars

José Ferrer José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (January 8, 1912 – January 26, 1992) was a Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rican actor and director of stage, film and television. He was one of the most celebrated and esteemed Hispanic and Latino Americans, Hi ...

and

James Whitmore James Allen Whitmore Jr. (October 1, 1921 – February 6, 2009) was an American actor. He received numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Theatre World Award, and a Tony Award, plus two Ac ...

as two seniors who dream up fantastical adventures. The film was Ferrer’s final film role.

Plot

Warner Watney and Leinen Roth are two retired widowers and friends. Watney lives with his adult son Alex, daughter-in-law Leslie and their growing family, but may soon be going to live at an old-age home. Leinen lives alone in an apartment. The two friends cope with their old age and physical disabilities by getting together and imagining fantastical adventures in search of exotic locales such as

Atlantis Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias'' as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world ...

, the

Shangri-La Shangri-La is a fictional place in Tibet's Kunlun Mountains, Uses the spelling 'Kuen-Lun'. described in the 1933 novel '' Lost Horizon'' by the British author James Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently ...

in the

Himalayan Mountains The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 peak ...

, and the

Bermuda Triangle The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a loosely defined region in the North Atlantic Ocean, roughly bounded by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Since the mid-20th century, it has been the focus of an urban legend sug ...

. After Leinen survives a stroke, the pair set off on a real-life adventure, joining a tugboat sailing down the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

Cast

as Warner Watney *

as Leinen Roth *Jeffrey Gadbois as Alex Watney *Caroline Kaiser as Leslie Watney *

William Warfield William Caesar Warfield (January 22, 1920 – August 25, 2002) was an American concert bass-baritone, known for his appearances in stage productions, Hollywood films, and television programs. A prominent African American artist during the Civil ...

as tugboat captain

Reception

Kevin Thomas of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' praised the performances of the two lead actors and said, "Individually and especially together, Ferrer and Whitmore are a treat, with the dry humor of Ferrer’s character contrasting amusingly with his more conservative friend." Thomas critiqued the film’s transition from stage to screen and said "the poignance Ferrer and Whitmore generate is undercut by the tedium of talky stretches of theatrical dialogue." He concluded, "There’s no denying, however, that 'Old Explorers' certainly drives home the plight of the aged in our society and that its heroes’ flights of fancy underline the true state of isolation, neglect and lack of respect so frequently accorded even to alert and affluent older Americans." ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' said, "Directed by William M. Pohlad, mostly as a two-character study, 'Old Explorers' says something touching about the quietly growing terror of old age and the use of childlike imagination to--if only momentarily--forestall it, but it gets lost in the listless, paper-thin adventure sequences, filmed in Arizona and Florida."

References

External links

* * {{rotten-tomatoes, old_explorers 1990 films 1990 directorial debut films 1990 drama films 1990 independent films 1990s buddy drama films American buddy drama films American drama films American films based on plays Films about old age Films shot in Arizona Films shot in Florida Films directed by Bill Pohlad 1990s English-language films 1990s American films English-language independent films English-language buddy drama films