Review of All Is Lost (2013) by Dogbone49 — 11 Nov 2013

"All is Lost" will likely come across in different ways to different individuals. The movie-going public has a detached concept of the situation that Robert Redford's protagonist faces think TV hit "Survivor", where a tough day involves performing stunts brainstormed by the show's staff who are camped on the other side of the island and the big downside is getting blackballed by backbiting co-contestants.

I am a student of actual survival stories such as the Uruguayan rugby team's 1972 crash in the Andes, or Steven Callahan's story of surviving 76 days in a life raft in the Atlantic in his book "Adrift".

This is the basis for the "All is Lost" script, watching another human actually fighting for his life. Even though the film plays a little fast and loose with the technical aspects I think the movie succeeds masterfully in creating a powerful existential action movie without dialogue and limited special effects. It has the ascetic feel and pathos of Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea" but eschews dialogue, depending instead on Redford's superb acting to communicate the determination, fear, doubt and defeat of a man facing his mortality. This film is a rare gem in a pile of trinkets.