Review of Cast Away (2000) by Patrick L — 31 Mar 2013

Castaway stars Tom Hanks as a Fed-Ex managerial type who is something of a bad poster child for a "dedicated employee" in the sense that he is known for having taken a child's bicycle to finish a delivery.

He ends up being the only survivor of a plane crash in relatively unchartered waters, managing to survive without a life preserver because he grabbed an inflatable boat though the boat does get temporarily snagged as he headed to the surface in very stormy seas. (I stopped watching about.

This point due to being tired).

I've watched this film and quit part way through twice. I'm hoping to watch it all the way through some time soon. I finally watched this film all the way through, review to follow below.

Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks with Helen Hunt as his lady friend, is a bittersweet, tragic story of a Fed-Ex man who is close to proposing to his lady friend when he and his plane crashes into the sea and he is apparrently the sole survivor and ends up on a deserted island some ways from the Cook Islands. He is on the island for at least four years, declared dead back home and a funeral held, then in desperation he sails off the island and eventually is found by a freighter.

His bereaved lady friend, now married with a child, faints when she receives the news of his being alive. I felt turned off by a sizable portion of the film in which he appears to be going mad while on the island, it just didn't ring true for me but the beginning of the film and the ending made up for the rather weak middle. We later learned he had been driven to attempt suicide by his seemingly hopeless situation. 6/10.