All Is Lost

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.

Redford is great and this film shows how such a simple idea with one actor can work. As a filmmaker, it was interesting to see how a dialogue-free movie can work visually with a story that reminded me of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." For me, the story was a metaphor or allegory for life and our struggles. Cinematography was good, shot on the Arri Alexa, one of the hot cameras at the moment. The lack of dialogue and having only one actor made it a meditation for me on the visual elements. I hope Redford gets Oscar nomination. I'm inspired that a veteran like Redford had confidence in Chandor to go on this experimental film journey together.

"The rules of survival never change, whether you're in a desert or in an arena." Bear Grylls

No need to be stranded in the Indian Ocean in your sailboat because writer/director J.C. Chandor has masterfully provided the experience for you in All is Lost. In fact, you can be an Ancient Mariner retelling your story and never have starved or cursed an albatross. It's that good, that authentic a feeling, that pared down to the basics of survival.

"Our Man" (read "Everyman"), played with his signature cool by Robert Redford, is a rich, handsome, aging, expert sailor (he is probably a professional something when not sailing), whose back-story is unknown except for a few bits such as his voice over at the beginning lamenting he has not been all he should to his family and does not look at a gift card in a box for a new sextant, which he is reduced to using after almost all is lost in the storm.

The special effects are as fine as you might expect from such a high-end production—shots from depths upward to the boat are lyrically contradictory to the danger he is experiencing topside. The tumult inside the boat feels real as water takes its inevitable toll.

All is Lost serves as appropriate metaphor, among others, for the commercial forces that interfere in one's life and the end of life fight to survive in the face of inevitable death. The dignity Our Man displays, his resourcefulness, mostly lack of resentment, and his rare moments of anger at himself are how I hope I would react and probably wouldn't (I'd be a big baby because I don't favor the idea of leaving this beautiful world).

Redford's well-known minimalism lends just the right touch of gravity and loneliness to a role Hemingway wrote for his Old Man and Joseph Conrad could have fashioned for one of his brooding narrators. The New York Times' A.O. Scott reminds us you can hope to gain a Conradian truth from this vicarious adventure, "that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask" (Conrad's "Nigger of the 'Narcissus'," 1897). The other truth is, Redford is so believable as to deserve an Oscar nomination, his finest role on screen in a career for which he has constantly underplayed. He's still doing it, but this time he has no one else to distract us.

All is Lost leaves me with a small dissatisfaction because I'd like to know what his life has been so I can understand his possible death. Of course, Chandor seems to wish we would generalize the story to all men, and he's right to demand it. For me, surviving is what I always want to do—this film puts me right there:

"The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival." Aristotle

Robert Redford now an elder certainly in the final years of his acting time and life gives a performance to remember. And that's just a turn as a plain sailor man who without a name and really he has no words to say during the film! It proves that actions speak louder than words! Anyway "All is Lost" is a moving film of one man's will and determination to stay alive as the scenes show the forces of mother nature can put us at our strongest as a human will resort to many methods for the chance to live. The film is a tale of a sea collision involving a shipping container at sea. And Robert Redford is the sailor man at sea in the Indian ocean on the yacht when a powerful storm that's very violent hits the high sea. By watching you see how it's one character's struggle to survive and live. It proves that you should never give up it takes a lot of courage and will to live as just like the high sea life too is a violent storm many times. Overall this picture doesn't do many words it's actions of a struggle for life speaks the loudest and Redford in his wise age perhaps gives his strongest and smartest performance.

It takes a brave director and a brave actor to set forth on a journey where the film they are making is a near silent 100 minute plus feature that has a single actor command the screen from films opening until films close – All is Lost's brave men are second time director JC Chandor (whose first film Margin Call is well worth seeking out) and seasoned Hollywood legend Robert Redford who inhabits his meatiest film role in decades and reminds us why at one stage he was Hollywood's go to leading man.

Despite barely uttering a word Robert Redford is a commanding presence in this tale of survival, saying much with a mere facial expression or with a look of his eyes it's fair to say that only an actor of his experience and expertise could of pulled of such a feat and it's a great moment for him in the twilight of his career to again show us the viewer's just why he is a legend of the industry. Redford's commitment to the nameless role must have been a joy for director Chandor who is quickly establishing himself as a talent to watch. Margin Call was a film made around it's cracking script and banter between actors and All is Lost is just about as far from that as possible. For only his second feature length film it's a mighty feat by Chandor to control the film the way in which he does, whether or not on a calm sea or a raging storm the film never feels like it is slipping from Chandor's grip despite the film having major limitations in it's narrative scope.

For what it is All is Lost is virtually a faultless film but a movie in which we a are asked to sit and partake in 100 minutes of a man on the sea it can only go so far. Moments of great emotion or potential to expand on who we are witnessing surviving are lost like our protagonist and it deters audience investment. Other elements of the film such as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's front man Alex Ebert's Golden Globe winning score and the cinematography by Frank DeMarco and Peter Zuccarini feel as though they could have been expanded upon more also giving the film more scope and emotional feeling.

All is Lost may not be an easy film to enjoy or even sit through thanks to it's subject and plotting but it's a film that cannot be ignored thanks to a Redford showpiece and another fine step by Chandor in what is shaping to be an exciting career behind the camera. For a film about the will to survive and the strength of the human spirit it's one of the better examples of recent years.

3 and a half rouge shipping containers out of 5