Tom Hanks is an American cinema legend. From Splash to Big to A League of Their Own to Philadelphia to Forrest Gump to Apollo 13 to Saving Private Ryan to Toy Story to The Green Mile and everything in between, Hanks has crafted some of the most memorable performances any generation has ever seen. But, if you notice a trend in the above movies, these and many other classics occurred before 2000, when Robert Zemeckis’s (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump) Cast Away had its theatrical run. Since then, Hanks’ has starred in quality movies like Road to Perdition, Catch Me If You Can, Charlie Wilson’s War, Captain Phillips, Saving Mr. Banks, and Sully. However, there have also been misses like The Da Vinci Code trilogy, Larry Crowne, Cloud Atlas, Ithica, The Circle, and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Indeed, his career still has more ups and downs, but his overall portfolio isn’t quite as robust. Plus, in the last 20 years, he has taken more time off between projects. I mention all of this because he’s been my favorite actor for a large portion of my life, and I would prefer him acting more often with fewer duds in between.
You know what Cast Away is about unless you are under 25 or have been living under a rock. Chuck Noland (Hanks) is a friendly but stiff and controlling executive of Federal Express (FedEx) who resolves problems worldwide. In one scene, he’s constantly in the air, both domestically and internationally, telling workers from Russia that they need to work more quickly to meet the company’s stringent deadlines. His fiance Kelly (Helen Hunt – The Sessions, As Good As It Gets) deals with his time-obsessed lifestyle as he’s a good man and makes time for her. So she tries her hardest to be with a man whose beeper seems to go off every minute or who leaves during the holidays to put out a couple of company fires in Asia. And when he kisses her goodbye and says, “I’ll be right back,” we know something is about to go wrong.
Chuck takes a FedEx flight across the Pacific, which is blown off course before crashing after an onboard explosion. The plane crashes into the ocean. Chuck survives by floating on a rubber raft to an isolated island. Again, unless you are under 25 or live under a rock, you know this is the movie’s premise. Tom Hanks essentially acts on his own for over an hour on an island that has become his home for over four years. We see him go from a slightly chubby, terrified man who fears his life is over to a chiseled, confident man who learns how to fish with self-created contraptions while doing something similar to make fire.
The middle of the movie (which occupies more than a third) is THE reason to see this film. Many successors (I Am Legend, 127 Hours, Buried, All Is Lost, Locke) and probably a few predecessors have asked actors to capture the audience’s attention for large chunks or entire films. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. It works in Cast Away because of Hanks. He is, at times, mesmerizing in this film, which earned him his fifth and most recent Academy Award nomination (at the time of this writing in 2019). Chuck creates a home using materials on the island and a few set props that were washed ashore as FedEx shipped packages. And we get to go on this journey with him. He commands the screen during this character transformation, and despite the circumstances, it’s a joy to see.
Cast Away is a good movie that moves close to great because of Hanks. I was somewhat surprised to revisit my Top 10 Movies of 2000 and see that it was not on my list. But then I looked at my list, and it’s pretty solid. I don’t like to do this and base my films’ rankings on either one or two views, but I have seen parts of Cast Away so often that it influenced its ranking. It’s an adventure movie in the mold of some of the best adventure movies. And while Act I didn’t do anything for me because of its predictability, Act II more than made up for it.
You’ll be hard-pressed to watch a movie where one character is on the screen for over an hour (with no flashbacks or flash-forwards). I’ve seen people knock on Act III a little bit, but I appreciated Chuck’s acclimation back to society and trying to reconnect with those important to him who thought he was dead for all of those years. The attempt to mend the relationship between Chuck and Kelly after all of these years is awkward and loses some of the movie’s momentum, but how could it not if you are to take this drama seriously? There are complications, and it’s difficult and a disservice to wrap everything else up in a nice big bow.
Plot 9.5/10
Character Development 10/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 9/10
Directing 9.5/10
Cinematography 9.5/10
Sound 8.5/10
Hook and Reel 9.5/10
Universal Relevance 9/10
91.5%
A-
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