All Is Lost

I immediately hated the idea and movie when I first heard about it. After leaving the cinema in the half 10 years ago in Cast Away disaster and hating all Tom Hanks movies after wards, I thought "no, not again!". Then I forgot about it.

Then fate comes in. Here I sit with my girlfriend in a lazy Sunday afternoon and we're preparing to watch Grand Budapest Hotel on DVD. But wait, All Is Lost begins in a movie channel before I switch to DVD. While I was busy with preparing wine & cheese my girlfriend says "wait, this movie got my attention, let's see where it goes".

After 2 hours we sit with admiration on the simplicity & minimalist style vs. the strong portrayal of human will and survival instinct against nature elementals. Yes, we definitely liked this movie.

And of course we're not sailors. We do not know the technical details of what to do or what not to do in sailing. Of course there were some logical problems when we asked "wait, why did he do that?" in some scenes - but this didn't bother us enormously.

But when I entered and read the reviews here, I confront with human ego, I-know-everything attitude of "sailors" here. Ego is interesting, don't get me wrong I do not criticize this. If this movie was about health & illness and the main character was ill in a remote island and tries to heal himself, you should see my technical rant here as a health professional. Yes this is E.G.O., Everyone Got One.

But if you can pass ego, this is real nice movie showing the strong will and instinct of human being vs nature. Definitely not a waste of time as I prejudicially thought before..

This is one to watch, especially if you have watched and enjoyed Cast Away. To be honest I did not expect to like it so much, knowing the type of movie this is. It is really fascinating though to realise how well this movie goes on based purely on one man's resourcefulness. The pace of the film is great with the action scenes keeping me on the edge of my seat. Redford in his late 70s gives a truly solid performance confronting his misadventures with extreme calmness and pure dignity. The character gives real time lessons on how to survive under such dire circumstances. A film dedicated to mortality. Quite different from what you may have seen in related films. I definitely recommend it!

Ocean sailing that went sour. Man wakes up in the middle of absolute oceanic nowhere to find he had collided with a container, causing damage to his boat as well as rendering communications totally ineffective.

The film is made as a series of events aiming for this man to fail. Once restoration and improvement of conditions is achieved, a setback occurs. He is exposed, unprotected and threatened once again. Death is constantly around the corner.

The sequences are very realistic, accurately depicting the inherent risk of sea adventure. The calm is followed by a storm which is succeeded by another calm.

The success of this film lies in the fact that it is held well together, despite the complete absence of dialogue and this why only an actor of the stature of Robert Redford could pull this off and is in terrific shape despite his 77 years.

Ultimately, it is a tale of triumph of the human spirit that will not yield in the face of adversity and will fight to the very end to survive.

When I saw the movie, All is Lost, I thought I was watching a movie based on a true story. The movie is very realistic in that it portrays perfectly the way I think someone would feel out in the ocean all alone. Many people will probably not like this film for how little dialogue there is in it.

For sailing enthusiasts this film does have a few reality checks. But for the most part I felt very much the same as Our Man, the character in this film. This is a credit to the director and his ability to make the audience feel vested in the main character's survival. This movie, while very good, does move slow at times. And while I am not a sailor I did notice a few of the reality checks in this film too.

What really makes the movie for me is that there are actual ocean disasters that are eerily similar in how they play out for the main character in this film. If know of some of these you will understand why this movie and its portrayal of the main character are so well done.

The ending is something left entirely to the viewer to interpret. But even that I found to be very realistic and probably the best part of the movie. This movie does a great job of trying to show the viewer how even when you seemingly do things right, bad things can still happen. It follows the old adage of "when it rains, it pours" or "one thing after another".

All is lost or is it?

This simple but very survival movie about a man stuck on a sinking boat is very engrossing and watchable. Who needs grand over blown special effects and fake CGI when you have a good story - it holds attention from beginning to end.

Direction is good - you can almost feel the heat, thirst, waves etc that have to be endured.

Would liked to have a bit more before and after about how he got out there and after being rescued.

Feel for the elderly Redford getting all wet and filming this movie must have been physically demanding.

Good and quite memorable.