Cast Away (2000)

	Directed by: Robert Zemeckis	COUNTRY USA GENRE Drama/Survival NORWEGIAN TITLE Cast Away RUNNING TIME 143 minutes
	Produced by: Tom Hanks Jack Rapke Steve Starkey Robert Zemeckis
	Written by: William Broyles, Jr.

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Chuck Noland	Tom Hanks	½
Kelly Frears	Helen Hunt
Stan	Nick Searcy
Anne Larson	Anne Bellamy
Jerry Lovett	Chris Noth

Review

The second teaming of successful director Robert Zemeckis and arguably the biggest movie star of the 1990s, Tom Hanks, didn't turn out quite as successful as its predecessor. The elements that made Forrest Gump so special, including the creative form and the rich emotional spectre, are missing from Cast Away – a film that should have made more of an impact than it ultimately does.

Nobody can blame Hanks, however. He more than does his share, giving a completely devoted performance in which he is able to make Chuck Noland believable both as a high-strung business executive, a desperate plane crash survivor, a skilled and experienced Robinson Crusoe, and an understanding and quietly tormented man of hard-learned wisdom. The segments from the riveting plane crash and spanning Chuck's entire stay on his deserted island are easily the film's best. We live Chuck's ups and downs with him, and we get to experience his transformation from a civilized, ill-placed man to a pragmatic, instinctive hunter. There are some superb scenes here, most of which are carried by Hanks' performance. Zemeckis' work, on the other hand, is too controlled. He doesn't give us enough space to breathe and feel for ourselves, making Cast Away emotionally truncated and impressive mainly on a pragmatic level.

In the end, there is too much message involved in the film's prolonged denouement. Chuck didn't need to have been the personified time-consumer in order for us to see that most of us could have benefitted from slowing down the pace. The scenes between Hanks and Hunt towards the end, while valid and well-conceived, may have been more effective had they been played out in our heads. Cast Away is an engaging film that is easy to relate to, but it probably won't make us change our busy schedules.