KON –TIKI

This enthralling, riveting, compelling film is for anyone who has actualized their dreams, defied the “odds” and the “gods”,  bulldozed antagonistic skeptics, spitting in the eye of the disbeliever; castrators of ingenuity, promise;  and for all those who have yet to slay the cynics;  give birth, sculpt their fantasies into reality.

“Kon-Tiki” is filmmaking at its pinnacle; actors, especially Pal Sverre Valhein Hagen as “Thor” are startling clones of the original protagonists; glorious, creative cinematography, breathtaking in scope, outstandingly beautiful; and a tale that defines a visionary, a man intransigent in his desire, unflappable resolve to prove that South Americans (from Inca-Peru) over 1,500 years ago, in a balsa-wood raft, sailed west and were the first inhabitants of Polynesia.

Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002) (named after “Thor” the Norse god of Thunder: “Thursday” references the myth);  a Norwegian ethnographer assembles a crew of six men and a parrot who re-create the balsa raft (baptized “Kon-Tiki”) and set sail from Peru on April 28, 1947; what transpires is magic, relying totally on celestial navigation for 101 days, this daring crew dance with the elements, outwit nautical-naga scavengers, and one star-infested evening realize Neptune, Thor and Tiki had accepted them as worthy members of their league.

Thor Heyerdhal was a man for the ages; he could not swim, cursed with a dreadful fear of the water, after two, near-death, “watery grave” experiences in his youth; he was not a sailor. But he was a man with a mighty mission, refusing to be felled; conquering all adversaries, roadblocks;  living a life he chose, believed in; to paraphrase “Invictus” (William Ernest Henley and the mantra of Nelson Mandela) he was the master of his fate, the captain of his soul.

FOUR & 1/2 STARS!!!!

For Now…………….Peneflix