Dolphin Tale

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Movie Details

• Genre: Drama
• Release Date: 2011-09-23 Nationwide
• Running Time: 112 min.
• Director: Charles Martin Smith
• Cast: Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr., Kris Kristofferson, Nathan Gamble, Cozi Zuehlsdorff, Austin Stowell
• Producer: Andrew A. Kosove, Broderick Johnson
• Writer: Karen Janszen, Noam Dromi
• Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
• Official Site: Dolphin Tale Official Site

Of this year's corny family heartwarmers based on true aquatic stories of coping with the loss of appendages, director Charles Martin Smith's boy-and-his-dolphin melodrama at least earns your empathy—unlike the disingenuous Christploitation of Soul Surfer. Off the Florida coast, skittish grade-schooler Nelson (Nathan Gamble) strikes an immediate bond with a bottlenose named Winter (playing herself), freeing her from a crab trap that has irrevocably crippled her tail. Son of a cool single mom (Ashley Judd), Nelson is a dispassionate loner whose only father figure is his older cousin, a former swimming champion who returns home from overseas military deployment wheelchair-bound and traumatized in a surprisingly weighty and grown-up subplot. But the kid finds new purpose in helping out with Winter's rehabilitation at the local marine hospital, led by Harry Connick Jr.'s good-hearted doc and his spunky, freckled daughter (Cozi Zuehlsdorff). A mildly eccentric prosthetics doctor (MVP Morgan Freeman) is eventually called upon to craft a new flipper for Flipper, and a third-act "Save the Dolphins from Condo Developers" carnival dribbles out the rest of the formula. But the message is too pure to nitpick: By the end of the movie, Winter has become a mascot for human disability, especially for children, and Dolphin Tale has enough depth and sensitivity to tap into emotion without feeling manipulative.