Free Willy

When a boy learns that a beloved killer whale is to be killed by the aquarium owners, the boy risks everything to free the whale.

• Director:Simon Wincer
• Genre:Adventure / Drama / Family
• Runtime:112 minutes

Cast

Keiko : Willy
Jason James Richter: Jesse
Lori Petty : Rae Lindley
Jayne Atkinson : Annie Greenwood
August Schellenberg : Randolph Johnson

The film begins with a pod of Orcas swimming near the coastline of the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, this family of Orca is tracked down by a large group of whalers, and a single orca gets caught in their net. Unable to save him, his family leaves him behind, and he is taken away to a local amusement park.

Sometime later, Jesse, a young boy who has been on the run since he was abandoned by his mother six years before, gets caught by the police for vandalizing a theme park along with a group member of three other abandoned kids (who are not caught). However, his social worker Dwight helps him avoid legal consequences, provided he cleans up the mess at the park. While there, Jesse befriends Willy, the Orca that was caught earlier and has a collapsed dorsal fin. He teaches him behaviors, something the trainer, Rae Lindley, had failed to do. Over time, Jesse and Willy become the best of friends, and Jesse earns a long-term job at the marina while learning to live with his new and supportive foster parents, Glen and Annie Greenwood.

The owner of the amusement park, Dial (Michael Ironside) sees the talent Jesse and Willy have together, and makes large plans to host “The Willy Show” in hopes of boosting sales and making money for himself. On the day of the first performance, everyone is set to begin, but Willy comes down with stage fright due to the children banging constantly on his underwater observation area. Willy scares them off by smashing against the tank, unintentionally damaging it. Jesse is devastated, but later, while at the tank, Jesse notices Dial’s assistant Wade (Richard Riehle) and other men sneaking into the underwater observation area and damage the tank enough that the water will gradually leak out in an effort to kill Willy. It is surmised that Dial is interested in collecting the insurance money, since he has a $1,000,000 life insurance plan on Willy.

Thus, Jesse, Haida shaman Randolph Johnson (August Schellenberg) and Rae begin plans to release the Orca. They use equipment at the park to load Willy onto a trailer, and Jesse and Randolph ‘borrow’ Glen’s truck to tote Willy to the ocean. They try to stick to back roads to keep from being spotted with a gigantic Orca, and eventually get stuck on a back road. Wade meanwhile notifies Dial that the Orca is missing, and begin a search to find Willy. Read more

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