Directed by:
Robert ZemeckisScreenplay:
William Broyles Jr.Cinematography:
Don BurgessComposer:
Alan SilvestriCast:
Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, David Allen Brooks, Nick Searcy, Nan Martin, Elden Henson, Timothy Stack, Jay Acovone, Chris Noth, Jenifer Lewis, Derick Alexander (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
After a plane crash leaves a man stranded on a deserted island, he fights to stay alive for years, clinging to the hope he'll someday return home. (Netflix)
Videos (1)
Reviews (7)
It's strange. Cast Away seemingly contains everything that predisposes it to triumphant success, namely an attractive subject matter, an excellent cast, a famous director, a decent script, a reasonably large budget, and so on. Nevertheless, in the end, something didn't quite click for me. I feel a certain unfulfillment of expectations and I don't want to give it a fourth star, even though the film is disadvantaged by the fact that I saw it on television. Perhaps on the big screen, I would lean towards giving it a fourth star. I pondered what was excessive or missing for me, which turned out to partly be a certain melodramatic aspect, but I still couldn't define the core of the problem. Cast Away is too literal, unnecessarily sprawling, pathetic, and overblown. Despite all the effort, it doesn't captivate, even though Hanks gives his all. Overall impression: 65%.
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I don't need to go on and on about what an amazing actor Tom Hanks is, because we all know that already. What I should mention in my review, though, is that Hanks' performance is what makes Cast Away such a compelling, moving and thought-provoking adventure that I enjoy on each subsequent viewing as intensely as on the first...
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Unlike the other reviewers, I needed exactly this ending. Without those final minutes, Chuck's adventures would have lacked emotions and I've already seen plenty of empty journeys back and forth (whether literal or metaphorical). Robert Zemeckis truly knows how to skillfully create these gentle yet believable moods.
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I sat and didn't move until the last act. As a survivor of the first BioShock I felt right at home during the perfectly filmed plane crash sequence. The subsequent introduction of the island and the pudgy misfit Hanks makes you feel as happy as he does for the unfortunate guy’s every little accomplishment. It's got beautiful cinematography, great locations, and it works quite humorously with the "American way of life" of the time (even then a bit old-school), with the character quite understandably fetishizing the objects and brands (Wilson) that FedEx delivers. Incidentally, the way he comes out of it I wouldn't be surprised if they paid for the whole film. On the other hand, they did come up with some pretty funny advertising through the film. Unfortunately, my empathy strings snapped during the widely criticized conclusion. You couldn't ask for a more hopeless romantic, yet I just don't buy it when a half-crazed castaway having spent four years on a desert island returns home and the one thing that's on his mind is his last girlfriend. I know it's a strong theme, but from the little I've read about people who've been orphaned from civilization for even a fortnight and are still recovering from it mentally, the whole cavalier ending seems totally phoned in.
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A classic tale of Robinson Crusoe, brought to life in a captivating spectacle, with the main highlight of this Zemeckis film being the performances. The story itself isn't particularly innovative, it's just sometimes well-spiced - like with the toothache, for example. It’s one of those films where I felt it could have ended about twenty or thirty minutes earlier, but no, they had to tack on another three endings.
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