Good casting (Castaway (DVD))

Member Name: roger_smith

Product:	Castaway (DVD)
Date:	08/02/01 (17 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good cast and graphics

Disadvantages: too long

The choices of Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt for the lead roles in Cast Away could not have been any better. I am expecting to see more Academy Award nominations made for Tom Hanks with his lead role in this movie.

I have been eagerly awaiting the release of this movie since I first saw the previews for it in October. The movie opened with an overhead view of rural Highway 48 in Texas in the middle of farm country. As the camera zooms in on Highway 48, there is a Fed Ex truck approaching a remote intersection. We follow the Fed Ex truck to a small work shed outside a rural farmhouse. The Fed Ex driver is picking up a package from a young, female artesian who welds sheet metal into beautiful angel adornments. This artesian tells the Fed Ex driver to return on Thursday because she will have another shipment ready at that time.

This scene was confusing to me but I knew it would tie in at some point during the movie. It took a while but finally did.

The scene then changes over to another part of the world. The viewers are thrown into Russia where Chuck (Tom Hanks) is a Fed Ex manager and is attempting to open a new Fed Ex delivery station. He is training new employees. The new employees are all Russian and Chuck must have an interpreter to help him with his training. This scene introduces the main characters of the movie as we follow along with Chuck as he performs his job duties in Russia. The main gist of this scene is to let the audience know that Chuck is a stickler for time. His training reflects that the clock is everything and packages are to be delivered as quickly as possible, no matter what the cost. He continues to remind all the employees about the clock and how many minutes are left to perform certain job duties.

As Chuck flies back to the United States he is eager to be back home with his girlfriend, Kelly (Helen Hunt). Kelly is a student of the law. She is diligently working on her dissertation as Chuck is travelling around
the world working for Fed Ex. They portray the perfectly matched pair beautifully. The magic between Chuck and Kelly radiates from the screen when he returns from his trip. There is no doubt that this couple was made for each other. They spend Christmas together but again, the clock interferes with the holidays as Chuck has a trip to make between Christmas and New Years.

There is a cute scene at the Christmas dinner table with all of Chuck’s relatives sitting around and Chuck is ribbing Kelly about hanging around with lawyers, judges, and those who make you “raise your right hand and swear to tell the truth.” (We noticed that Tom raises his left hand as he is talking. Not sure if this was a blooper or if he intentionally raised the left hand.) However, he cuts the Christmas celebration short because he must catch a plane to follow up on his next Fed Ex assignment. He keeps checking his watch every few minutes to assure himself that he is on schedule.

Chuck tells Kelly that they do not have time to exchange presents unless they exchange them in the car on the way to the airport. The exchange of presents was a very sweet scene, which I won’t give away because it is too sweet. It brought tears to my eyes.

With promises to return by New Years eve, Chuck takes off for his overseas journey. As they are crossing the ocean, the plane hits bad weather, terrible turbulence, and must veer off course to attempt to avoid the storm. This scene is very tense. The camera work makes one feel as if he is on the plane with Chuck and the other Fed Ex employees. It is a nightmare to behold and the graphics were intense. I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat and wanted to scream as I saw the inevitable about to occur. As we look through the cockpit windows, all we see is ocean looming closer by the millisecond.

The camera stays with Chuck all through the plane crash. I continue to bite my fingernails until he is clear
of the plane, the jet engines, and all the debris scattered across the ocean.

Chuck finds himself washed up on a small deserted island. I thought the next part of the movie would be rather monotonous – I had visions of “Gilligan’s Island” but was pleasantly surprised to see that was not so. The efforts made by Chuck merely to survive seemed very realistic. One example of this was the scene from his second night on the island, Chuck kept hearing this scary sound. He jumped up from his sleep and said, “Who’s there?” As no one answered I could feel the terror well up in me.

Each day, after the plane crash, Chuck walks along the beach and gathers Fed Ex packages that are washing up on the shore. He continues his habit of sorting the packages into separate categories, which was a bit comical based on his situation. As time goes by, he finally breaks down and opens all of the packages (except for one) seeking some things that may be of assistance to him on the island. It was very interesting seeing how he made use of each item in the packages. An item in one of the packages becomes a friend and cohort to Chuck. He names his friend Wilson and becomes very attached to it. He takes Wilson anywhere he goes on the island. He chats with Wilson and at one point he even got into an argument with him (er…it.).

After spending four years on the island, a half of a portable potty washes up on the shore. Chuck decides that this was the item that he could use to be rescued. Chuck builds a raft and uses the section of the portable potty as a sail. He and Wilson make it past the huge breakers (which broke him once earlier in the movie) and out into the ocean.

Many days go by as Chuck is sailing the ocean on his man-made raft. He has additional trials on the ocean and by the time he is found and rescued, Chuck has weathered another terrible storm, lost Wilson (this scene puts a lump in your throat too)
, and the raft is only a few boards with a bit of twine holding it together.

As he returns to the United States, he learns that Kelly is married and has a child. As they finally get a chance to talk, Kelly has a difficult decision to make: either to go with the love of her life, or stay with her husband and child. I won’t give away her choice.

The movie ends at the same rural farmhouse that it began with. The one package that Chuck did not open on the island ties in with this rural farmhouse. But when the movie was over it rather left me sitting there going “HEY! This CAN NOT be the end!” However, when I left the theater and thought about the movie for a while, the ending made more sense to me.

The movie is over 2 hours long, but not once was I bored. It was extremely well done. As I was going to the movie I was thinking “I hope I don’t fall to sleep during this movie” because I was very tired. At home each time I try to watch a movie I fall to sleep. However, that was definitely not a problem for me watching Cast Away.

I took my niece (10) and my son (17) with me to see the movie. The niece was like me, she thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The son, he said it wasn’t as good as he anticipated. I am guessing that because the movie wasn’t an action shoot-em-up he got rather bored. There was no strong language in this movie. The worst word spoken was “d*mn” which was readily pointed out by my niece on our way home. My son reminded her that even some Disney movies have that word in them.

Overall, I loved this movie. I am sure that when it comes out on video, I will be adding it to my video collection.

Summary: