Flipper (1996 film)

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Flipper
Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by	Alan Shapiro
Produced by	James McNamara Perry Katz
Written by	Ricou Browning Jack Cowden
Starring	Paul Hogan Elijah Wood
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	May 17, 1996
Running time	96 Minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

Flipper is a 1996 remake of the 1963 film of the same name, starring Elijah Wood. The movie is about a boy who has to spend the summer with his uncle Porter (Paul Hogan), who lives in the Florida Keys. Although he expects to have another boring summer, he encounters an orphaned dolphin which he names Flipper and enjoys a summer of friendship bonding with the orphaned one.

[edit] Plot

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The story starts with Sandy Ricks (Elijah Wood) being sent to the seaside town of Coral Key to stay with his uncle Porter (Paul Hogan) to spend the summer.

While they are out on Porter's fishing trawler, they meet his arch enemy, Dirk Moran (Jonathan Banks).

Nearby, a pod of dolphins is frolicking around near Dirk's boat. As a big game fisherman, Dirk hates just about every other fish eating animal on earth. He shoots at the dolphins. Although many escape, Flipper is separated from the main pod.

Flipper then arrives in Coral Key and is met by Sandy and a girl named Kim (Jessica Wesson). Kim tells Sandy that Flipper was lucky to live away from his pod for so long, especially since they live in the same area as Scar, a fearsome hammerhead shark who has been terrorising Coral Key for years.

Sandy makes plans to return to his home in Chicago and one night, he sets off for the docks. While he is there, he kicks a Pepsi can that he finds, into the water, Flipper swims up and tosses it back. Sandy repeats this trick several times and is beginning to feel a connection with the dolphin when his ferry arrives.

Porter wakes up to find his nephew missing. A neighbour tells him that Sandy took the ferry to Chicago. Porter catches up with the ferry and brings Sandy back to Coral Key.

When the two awake next morning, they find that a hurricane has devastated Coral Key. Porter goes into town for supplies, leaving Sandy to fix what he can.

Sandy is distracted from his work by Flipper. While the two are playing, Kim tells Sandy that he needs fish to feed the dolphin. Sandy starts his own amusement park called the Flipper Show, where visitors need to pay one fish to get in.

Porter arrives home and is furious when he finds out that Sandy has been playing with the dolphin rather than doing what he was meant to be doing.

Shortly after this, the sheriff of Coral Key (Isaac Hayes) arrives to tell Porter and Sandy that by law, they cannot keep the dolphin.

The next day, Flipper is caught in a fishing net by Dirk Moran's men. Porter uses a knife to cuts the rope to release the net, allowing Flipper to escape.

Flipper is gone from Coral Key for a long time afterwards. Fearing for his safety, Sandy and Kim set out in a dinghy to find him. They do not find him but they do find a group of people dumping toxic waste into the sea. Unfortunately, the people are too far away to identify.

The next morning, Kim is on the beach when Pete, Porter's pet brown pelican, comes running up to her, almost as if asking her to follow him. Pete leads Kim to a dying Flipper.

Porter's friend, Cathy (Chelsea Field) and her untalkative son, Marvin (Jason Fuchs) mix up a special medicine for Flipper (and take a blood sample) before releasing him into the wild.

Cathy runs some tests on the blood sample she collected and concludes that Flipper was poisoned by toxic waste. But when she reports her discovery to the sheriff, he tells her that it is not enough evidence to prove that there really is toxic waste out there.

Porter and Cathy realise that the only way they are ever going to solve this mystery is if they do it themselves. So along with Kim, Sandy and Marvin, they set out to find the toxic waste.

Cathy hopes to use Flipper's gift of echolocation to help them find the toxic waste. She makes a special camera to put on Flipper's head. As planned, the footage on the camera reveals the location of the toxic waste.

Porter decides to head back to Coral Key to tell the sheriff of their discovery. But Sandy lags behind to say goodbye to Flipper. Unfortunately, his dinghy is dismantled by Dirk Moran's boat. Sandy survives the encounter but then sees a dorsal fin. He thinks it is Flipper (as pretending to be a shark was one of Flipper's favourite jokes), but it is actually a hungry Scar.

Sandy swims for Dirk Moran's boat, with Scar in hot pursuit. Flipper hears Sandy's cries for help and swims to the rescue. Fipper starts nose butting Scar in the gills, but the shark is stronger than Flipper and starts trying to attack him. At that moment, Flipper's pod turns up and through strength of arms, the dolphins drive Scar away from Sandy.

Meanwhile, Sandy makes it to the boat, where Dirk Moran reveals that he was the one who dumped the toxic waste barrels into the sea. Dirk is just about to kill Sandy when Flipper jumps up and whacks Dirk into the sea.

The sheriff soon arrives to arrest Dirk. Sandy says one last farewell to Flipper before the dolphin swims away with his pod. Sandy leaves Coral Key with his mother and little sister the next morning. Then, on the ferry home, he sees Flipper and his pod leaping around the boat to see Sandy off.