Back in October 1988, there was a heartwarming human-interest story that briefly swept more serious events off the world's TV screens. Three California grey whales were trapped under the ice in the Arctic circle near Barrow, Alaska, with only a small hole in the ice to use for a breather. Unless released within three days to head out for the southern breeding ground, they'd die. There followed a rescue mission that involved the media, the oil industry, the politicians, Greenpeace, the Wildlife Management Dept, the National Guard, the small-town inventors of a domestic thawing device and the USSR in its dying days. But the title of this film is ironic. It wasn't a "big miracle" of international co-operation. Everyone exploited the crisis in the manner of the cynical journalist (Kirk Douglas) in Billy Wilder's classic 1951 movie Ace in the Hole who talked up a potentially disastrous story of a man trapped underground in the New Mexican desert. They all had personal or professional agendas to pursue, ranging from an oil company boss (Ted Danson) eager to gain kudos and further drilling rights, to Ronald Reagan polishing his reputation in its final months and securing the election of his successor, George Bush. It is a fascinating story based on a prize-winning book called Freeing the Whales: How the Media Created the World's Greatest Non-Event, and right at the end Sarah Palin pops up on TV reporting on a local basketball match as Alaskan TV gets back to trivial normality. Recalling no doubt that Ace in the Hole was the biggest box-office disaster of Billy Wilder's career, the makers attempt to coat their fascinatingly bitter pill with saccharine. They are, however, only partially successful.