Right, time for another revisitional post as this one will take a re-look at my original review of the Tom Hanks film, Cast Away, which is essentially a modern day Robinson Crusoe as it deals with one man's struggles after he is stranded on a desert island.
So after 18 years (wow that long?!) let's take another look at this one and see how it fairs...
And yep the usual warning is coming up....
SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!
STORY
Right so the film begins with its main character Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) who is a systems engineer with Fed-ex who travels the world troubleshooting productivity problems at Fedex depots and takes a rather meticulous approach to his work. Chuck is also in a relationship with Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt) and they both want to get married but Chuck's work often get's in the way of their plans to do so. Chuck whilst spending at Christmas with Kelly and his relatives is interrupted by a call from Fedex to make a trip to Malaysia.
However during the flight, the plane get's caught in a violent storm which causes it to crash into Pacific ocean with Chuck being the only survivor he manages to get himself ashore on an island after using a life-raft but in the chaos, he loses a flight transponder, which would help locate him. Chuck soon after looks around the island and finds it to be uninhabited. Chuck also later on finds some of the Fedex parcels that came down from the wreck of the plane and washed ashore, which he opens most of them all except one, which he decides to leave unopened. Chuck one day also sees a ship in the distance and frantically tries to get its attention and he makes a failed attempt to swim towards it in the life-raft but he finds the waves and the coral reefs are too strong to let him progress.
Afterward Chuck tries to adapt to living on the island and attempts to find food and make fire and during his first attempt he accidentally cuts his hand and throws some objects away in frustration, one of which is a Wilson volleyball, which Chuck later draws a face onto his bloody palm print on the ball and he names the ball "Wilson" and starts talking to it. Chuck eventually is successful in making fire and he starts to adapt to living off the island and hunts for fish and crab to live off. Chuck however also starts to suffer from severe toothache and in the end he has to result in performing an emergency surgery by using the blade from a rollerskate which Chuck found in one of the boxes and a stone to knock out of the tooth, which he does successfully (albeit paifully!).
The story then cuts to four years later where Chuck is still on the island and has lost a significant amount of weight having had to live off the marine life on the island and now sprouts long hair and a shaggy beard. Chuck also shows signs of having lost a few of his marbles after being alone so much he now regularly talks to Wilson, his volleyball for companionship. One day however part of a portable toilet washes up on the shore, which gives Chuck the idea of using it as a sail. So Chuck then decides to build himself a raft using tree branches on the island and works out the optimal time to try and make his departure from the island. And from here once Chuck has built his raft and decided on the right time to depart, he then faces a very dangerous journey ahead to try and make it back to civilisation.....
THOUGHTS
As pretty much a one-man show, Cast Away works really well in what is basically a modern day re-telling of Robinson Crusoe with one man thrown into a harsh situation of having to life off an island and use his wits to survive. The film itself was shot in location in Monuriki, an island based in Fiji, which later became a popular tourist attraction as a result of the film's success. Tom Hanks put on alot of weight to play the part as he gained 50 pounds to play Chuck at the start of the film, but the film's production was later stopped for a year to allow for Hanks to lose the weight and grow his hair and beard for the latter half of the film.
PERFORMANCES (Or performance! Warning: spoilers might feature here!)
Which brings me onto performance of the film's lead, Tom Hanks, as Chuck Noland which is excellent and Hanks does really well at playing an everyday guy who on this occasion is thrown into an extreme situation where he is forced to live off an island with virtually no hope whatsoever of rescue.
Hanks as this is his film primarily has plenty of good scenes in it such as the one where he begins to try and make fire and he cuts himself on a twig and out of rage he throws away several items including the Wilson volleyball. And later Chuck picks up the ball and draws a face onto his bloody palm print on the ball and he starts to try and make fire again and during it he looks up to the ball and says "Hey you wouldn't by any chance have a match on you, would you?". And as he starts to get some smoke appear, he starts to blow to try and get the fire ignited but notices something and says "The air got to it! The AIR GOT TO IT!". So, Chuck tries again, frantically rubbing the stick against the branch until the smoke again appears and he blows on it and the flames spark and Chuck laughs in delight and shouts "FIRE!!!!".
And this is followed by Chuck having successfully made a big log fire and he sings The Doors song "Light my fire" while tries to stay back from the flames. So, then he stands back proudly and shouts around him "Look what I have created! Look what I have created!!! I have made fire!!" and he grabs a palm tree branch and sets it afire and waves it around and says "SOS!".
Another good scene is where Chuck is in his cave and we see he has done a drawing of Kelly with a bit of broken off stone on the cave wall and he says to Wilson "She looks much prettier in real life!". Then he works out a drawing on the cave walls of the map area of where he is and he says to Wilson "That's a search area of 500,000 square miles. That's twice the size of Texas. They may never find us!".
Then there is the scene where Chuck starts to argue with Wilson while he prepares his life-raft and he argues with the non-commital volleyball "Well we might just make it! Didn't that thought ever cross your brain????! Well regardless, I would rather take my chance out there on the ocean than stay here and die on this shithole island, spending the rest of my life talking to a GODDAMN VOLLEYBALL!!!". And Chuck proceeds to take the ball and kick it out of the cave and into the water, but he quickly panics realising what he has done and yells "WILSON!" and goes after and finds the ball again in the water and says "Never again! Never again!".
Then there is the scene where Chuck finally get's his fire going and he cooks crab meat and he says to Wilson "Gotta love crab. In the the nick of time too. I couldn't take much more of those coconuts. Coconut milk is a natural laxative! That's something Gilligan never told us!". And as Chuck is about to leave the island he says to Wilson "Don't worry, Wilson, I'll do all the paddling. You just hang on!".
Tom does also have some poignant moments in the film such as the one (PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD IN THIS PARAGRAPH!!!) where he loses Wilson in the ocean as the volleyball drifts off into the ocean and Chuck can't catch up with it, which leaves him inconsolable on his raft, sobbing away.
Then there is the scene after Chucks makes it back home he tries to reconcile with Kelly who has moved on with her live and gotten married, but as they feel the same for each other they realise it would never work. And Chuck is left to sadly reflect on how "I've lost her all over again. I'm so sad I don't have Kelly. But I'm so grateful she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise and who knows what the tide will bring".
As for the other cast members, Helen Hunt does OK in her role as Chuck's girlfriend, Kelly, who later marries after his disappearance, believing him to be dead. However, I wont' really mention her scenes here just to save time as the main focus of the film is Hanks himself (sorry Helen!). Nick Searcy also provides a good brief performance as Stan, one of Chuck's friends, who's wife is suffering with cancer. Chris Noth also does OK in his brief role as Jerry Lovett, Kelly's husband and Noth is of course better known as Mr Big from the hit American sit-com, Sex and the City. And last of all is Lari White as Bettina, the woman, who Chuck talks at the end of the film and sadly Lari died earlier this year of cancer.
DIRECTOR, PHOTOGRAPHY AND MUSIC
As for Bob Zemeckis, the film's director, he did a great job here with Cast Away and despite it being largely a one man show, he keeps the audience fascinated by showing how Chuck adapts to living his life on the island. Zemeckis also brilliantly directs the film's tense crash scene with the plane going down in the Pacific ocean the crash totally assaults the viewers senses (and ears with its sound effects!).
The film is also notable for its cinemaphotography by Zemeckis's long time collaborator, Don Burgess, which is absolutely stunning as the Monuriki island (in Fiji) is very easy on the eye and it produces some jaw dropping scenery.
And lastly Alan Silvestri, Zemeckis's long time composer, provides a pleasant score for the film, which largely resembles his score for Forrest Gump, except it doesn't really come into the film until near its end!
FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)
So flaws...... well Cast Away isn't totally perfect but then again few films are and it has to be said that the film is really in three acts, and two of those acts aren't that interesting as the film's most fascinating act is of course the middle one where Chuck is stranded on the island (the intro of the film being the first and Chuck's return to civilisation the third).
So in a way its a film that really depends on its main act to work and for the most part it works so well thanks to its being a one man show for Tom Hanks. But the scenes outwith the island tend to slow down the film a bit as they don't feel as interesting and you could also argue that the film's denouement is also a bit long and drawn out. And while its important that we see Chuck make it back to civilisation Zemeckis ultimately could have tighten it up a bit in doing so.
However to the credit of the beginning and end sequences credit, they do tie in with Chuck's time on the island more than you might realise, as in the first scene we see a parcel with wings on it being delivered to a man (which is presumably returned back to Fed-Ex unwanted). And Chuck when he is on the island, looks at the parcels that washed ashore and he finds that one with the "wings" on it and decides not to open it. And later as he get's back to civilisation, he delivers the parcel back to the sender and later asks the woman, Bettina, for directions and atferward she get's into her jeep and on the back we see the same wing design as on the parcel. So, its actually quite a clever thoughful ending to the film (this shouldn't really be a flaw as such then!).
Another issue is to do with how Chuck managed not to get his leg injury infected and it managed to ultimately heal up fine without proper medical attention (this is when Chuck tries to row his lifeboat out on the rough waters as he saw a flashing light in the distance and ends up gashing his left on a coral). Basically, we are lead to believe that all will be fine with Chuck at this point and he will just let it heal but that may not be the case in real life (well maybe!).
Then there is the issue with Chuck leaving his flashlight on rather than switching it off when he staggers his way into his cave, which certainly scuppers him for light in darkness, until he can make fire. You think he'd be better just switching it off for sure, although at this point to be fair, Chuck is exhausted from his attempts on the ocean, so he would be bound to forget to do so.
And last of all is it does seem very unlikely that Chuck would even be able to survive the plane crash himself when it happens as the other crew members are taken out but somehow Chuck manages to come through. And when the plane goes down in the water and explodes, you would think then that Chuck would be dead for sure as he is in the water pretty much right next to it! But ah well, it is a Hollywood film after all.
Anyway that is that for the flaws.
SUM UP
So to sum up, Cast Away is still a very entertaining and at times even fascinating film to watch and as a one man show for Tom Hanks it succeeds very well in showing that one of Hollywood's most lauded stars can take his hand to just about any film he appears in. And if you haven't seen Cast Away yet and decided to not "cast" your eye over it (sorry!) then its definitely worth a look.
Right, so that's it for now and I will be back soon with another post as I know I've been a bit late this month in getting the posts out, so I will try and manage a few before the month is out.
So, till the next un, its bye for now!
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