Survival Island

Survival Island, also known as Three, is a 2005 erotic thriller film written and directed by Stewart Raffill and starring Kelly Brook, Billy Zane and Juan Pablo Di Pace.

Survival Island
Theatrical release poster
Directed byStewart Raffill
Written byStewart Raffill
StarringKelly Brook
Billy Zane
Juan Pablo Di Pace
Music byRichard Harvey
CinematographyTony Imi
Edited byNick Rotundo
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • 16 November 2005 (2005-11-16) (Australia)
  • 5 May 2006 (2006-05-05) (United Kingdom)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryLuxembourg
United States
United Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Jack (Billy Zane) and Jennifer (Kelly Brook) are a wealthy couple who are yachting in the Caribbean during Christmas. One of their crew is the handsome Manuel (Juan Pablo Di Pace), who is cursed by his angry ex-girlfriend as he prepares to leave on the yacht. He is clearly bothered and has a difficult time fulfilling requests for the crew and guests. After the captain confronts him, Manuel quits and throws down a rag as he storms out of the galley. The rag lands on a gas flame and causes the entire yacht to catch fire. The captain is unable to control the blaze with a fire extinguisher so they abandon ship. Their lifeboats are capsized by a storm later that night and everyone becomes separated.

Washing up on a deserted island, Jennifer is completely alone until she sees the body of the captain in the water. As she attempts to resuscitate him, Manuel appears and also unsuccessfully tries to revive the man. They bury the captain and, under Manuel's guidance, set out to build a shelter and find food. They become sexually involved. Two days later, Jack also turns up on the island. Although things go smoothly for a little while, Jack eventually suspects Manuel of having desires on his wife and declares the man his enemy, promising to ruin his life once they get off the island. Manuel responds that Jack had better get home soon, because he can ruin Jack's life right there on the island. This puts Jennifer in the uncomfortable position of her loyalty to Jack conflicting with the realization that they both need Manuel's help to survive. A proud man, Jack insists that he can provide for them both, but it quickly becomes apparent that he cannot. Jack and Jennifer's relationship, already strained as he had always suspected her of only marrying him for his money, also starts quickly deteriorating.

Jack steals Manuel's goggles to go fishing one day and when Manuel discovers this, he threatens to kill Jack. Jennifer attempts to get him to calm down. As the two exit the water after fighting, Manuel pins Jennifer down and rapes her. Afterwards, Jennifer feels remorse saying Manuel shouldn't have had sex with her despite having enjoyed the encounter. Manuel reveals that he has loved Jennifer from the moment he first saw her, but it is also clear that this is a way for him to hurt Jack. When Jack returns, Jennifer accidentally hints at him what had happened and he furiously rejects her.

While fishing another day, Jack finds a boat on the ocean floor. He drags it to shore and attempts to repair it. Manuel proposes that he and Jennifer go for a midnight swim and as they start having sex, Jennifer gives Manuel the idea of stealing the boat so they can get away together from the island, unaware that Jack is listening to them. They plan to do so while Jack is out fishing. However, they do not get far before the boat begins to sink and they realize that Jack's plan all along was for them to take the boat and drown. They are forced to swim back to the island and to Jack, who attacks the now-exhausted Manuel with a spear and kidnaps Jennifer. The following day, an intense fight sequence ensues, interwoven with scenes of Manuel's ex-girlfriend performing a voodoo ceremony. The scene climaxes when Jennifer pins Jack to the ground, attempting to kill him with his own knife. Manuel, with Jack's spear stuck in his back, picks up a heavy rock with which to crush Jack. He loses his balance and falls backward, impaling himself on the spear, to Jennifer's horror. Simultaneously, the voodoo girl impales his effigy on a spike.

One year later, a yachting family drops anchor near the island and explores it, discovering Jennifer asleep in her hut. She, still somewhat distraught over Manuel's death, leaves with them, but does not mention that her ex-husband, who she has been forced to live with and depend on since Manuel's death, is also on the island. Jack, who is fishing, sees her leaving on the yacht and calls out, but Jennifer, who had also stolen his lighter so he could not make anymore fires, finally exacts revenge on him by ignoring him and the family inside the boat cannot hear him. Jack is abandoned on the island and his eventual fate is left ambiguous.

Cast

Production and release

The film was produced during 2003 and was originally set for cinema release under the title Three in 2004. Three went on limited cinematic release on 3 May 2006 in the United Kingdom before being released to DVD on 21 August 2006. The cinematic release lasted for just one week in many cinemas. Three was released on DVD in the United States on 15 August 2006. It was also released theatrically in a number of European countries under its original title.

Actors Billy Zane and Kelly Brook met during the course of filming and later became engaged. In late 2005 Zane and Brook unsuccessfully challenged the film's producers to remove Brook's nude scenes from the movie. However, the eventual DVD release kept these scenes intact.[1]

Critical reception

Three as it was known in the UK suffered from poor reviews, gaining a rare one-star rating on the BBC Movies website.[2]

Robert Hanks of The Independent said "[Three is] an unholy amalgam of Lord of the Flies, The Blue Lagoon and The Admirable Crichton ... At odd moments it rises to risibility, but mostly it is just dull..."[3][4]

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 17% based on reviews from 6 critics.[5]

Awards

Wins

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References
  1. Fazed Jealous Zanes lawsuit over sex ban.
  2. Trout, Jonathon, BBC Films, film review.
  3. Hanks, Robert, Independent Newspaper Three Review, film review.
  4. "Three". Empire. 6 April 2006.
  5. "Three (Survival Island) (2006)". Rotten Tomatoes.
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