SAVE THE WHALES PLEASE! A Movie Between Book Covers

Written by two men who hold Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California film school, Save the Whales Please is a movie between book covers with short scenes that end where the director—Quentin Tarantino?—might say, “Cut.” It’s a political action thriller in which Uma Thurman or Angelina Jolie might star as Jan Everett, the drop-dead gorgeous first lady of the United States and committed environmental activist whose passion is saving whales. Her husband, Carston Everett, is running for reelection for his second term. He’s an independent, and his poll numbers, like the poll numbers of his Democratic and Republican rivals, are all under thirty percent. Everett is young, glamorous, and ambitious. But a Jeb Bartlett he’s not. In fact, he’s surrounded by a chief of staff and advisors that make Dick Cheney and officials of the former administration look like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. Early on, George Pleasance, Everett’s chief of staff, sees a reflection of himself with the president and another advisor in a mirror in the Oval Office. He “felt a chill. In that moment, they could’ve been the White House of Nixon, Haldeman and Ehrlichman at the height of their power, pre-Watergate.”

It’s an action-adventure story of dirty politics all around the world. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) allows Japan to kill whales “for scientific study,” which really means for public consumption. Pirates slaughter whales and sell them to Japan. When Jan Everett and her team, which includes a videographer and a submarine captain, capture both a notorious pirate and a ship owned by a Japanese family with enormous political influence, Japan threatens the U.S. with a trade war. At the same time, nearly two thousand blue whales have somehow been trapped between the Arctic ice and the U.S. Navy’s sonar experiments. If the whales remain trapped, they’ll all die and the species is likely to become extinct. The White House has offered these whales to Japan to forestall the threatened trade war. Jan Everett and her cohort take over the captured pirate ship and set out to save the whales.

The authors, one of whom is an entertainment lawyer, have created amazingly realistic politics and technology. Well … either they’re making it up, or it’s nonfiction that will inspire both green fanatics and conspiracy theorists to take action. Either way, it’s an exciting read.
(April) Barbara Ardinger, Foreword

(Foreword, one of the five big trades, reviews only .04% of the books it receives)