Nights in Rodanthe - A Local Review

Well, I saw the movie Nights in Rodanthe! I was primarily interested in the scenery since the movie was shot on location from various parts of the Outer Banks. For one scene where the house was shot from an aerial perspective, I was actually windsurfing in the ocean off S-turns and saw the helicopter make a few passes. I looked for the reflective glint of a windsurfing sail in the background of the scene; however, none was found.

The movie itself was fairly lame. The dialog was kind of cheesy, and some of the characters were either too E! channel, or so melodramatic that is was hard to sit though the scene with a straight face. The hurricane scene and the storm's impact on the house was more like a scene from Amityville Horror with wildly fluttering shutters, dramatic light flashes, and odd moans and groans from the wind and rage outside. I guess there is dramatic/creative license there, but...hey we had the fictional "Rodanthe Radio" too which played at the Inn.

The only saving grace for the movie were the scenes of sand and dunes shot at various locations on the OBX. The shot where Gere is driving the car along what looked like RT 12 on the north end of Ocracoke was pretty cool as the helicopter zoomed down over the car with the dune line and ocean in the scene. Also, there were some scenes where the characters were walking among the dunes which looked like Pea Island near Oregon Inlet. Also, it was nice to see some of the local Ocracoke musicians at the clam bake scene, though other local extras were hard to pick out in the background.

All in all, it was a pretty sappy movie, but if you looked beyond the characters to the scenery especially near the beginning of the film, it was cool to see familiar sights, though the "Dirty Dicks" billboard shot was questionable?!

One to Five star rating: 2