Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12524 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-01-05
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, Russian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 138 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Cast Away reunites star Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis in their first collaboration since the heavy-handed sentimentality of Forrest Gump. Thankfully, this time their film's life-affirming message is delivered with more subtlety, attributable both to an extraordinarily committed, physically demanding central performance from Hanks and to Zemeckis' technically masterful but carefully understated direction. It's also a film with three distinct "acts" or, to be old-fashioned about it, a proper beginning, middle and end. The story follows schedule-obsessed but fulfilled FedEx supervisor Chuck Noland (Act 1) on a personal journey into the bleakest, most solitary despair (Act 2), before Helen Hunt, in the thankless role of ex-girlfriend, unwittingly allows him to glimpse an optimistic future full of untapped possibilities (Act 3).

Hanks' sojourn on the island is the centrepiece, but this is no tropical island idyll: following a terrifying plane crash (the one sequence in the film where Zemeckis shows off his uncanny ability to choreograph action), life on the island is seen to be a depressing and bitter experience filled with disappointment, danger and suicidal despair. Having lost all hope of rescue, ultimately Noland's greatest test is not to survive, but to find a reason to survive. He has no Man Friday for company, just a volleyball named "Wilson" that is both a narrative device allowing Hanks to deliver dialogue and an intriguingly pagan personification of the island's spirit under whose protection Noland is finally able to summon fire (significantly, and heartbreakingly, Wilson leaves him as he regains contact with the world). In an era of MTV-style film editing, Zemeckis and Hanks fearlessly take their time establishing with total conviction the grim realities of Noland's situation, his devastating loss of hope and the means by which he achieves his escape. Like Contact before it, Cast Away is a refreshingly thoughtful piece of mainstream cinema that explores weighty existential issues but retains a warm human intimacy.

On the DVD: The luminous anamorphic print with vivid Dolby 5.1 soundtrack is accompanied on the first disc by a technical commentary from Zemeckis and key crew personnel. It's plenty insightful for budding filmmakers, although for pure listening pleasure one might have preferred a more relaxed piece with just the director and Tom Hanks. The second disc includes a 30-minute making-of documentary in which the director sums up the moral of the movie--"Surviving is easy but living is difficult". This draws on material from the three other mini-documentaries about survival skills, Wilson the volleyball and the Fijian island location of Monu Riki respectively. There's also a section on the sometimes surprising use of CGI effects and a storyboard-to-film comparison sequence. Tom Hanks chats with American TV host Charlie Rose about this movie and his career in the extensive 50-minute interview. Trailers, artwork and stills round out a valuable two-disc set. --Mark Walker

Synopsis
Chuck Noland, a executive for Federal Express, survives a plane crash which kills all of his fellow passengers and crew. He is washed ashore a deserted island where he must learn to fend for himself or perish. Only the thought of his girlfriend, Kelly, keeps his hopes alive.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant
I normally get bored with a film where a scene consists mainly of one actor.
But Tom Hanks truly delivers it. Top quality acting. Amazing story line. Beautiful camera shots. In my top 5 favorite films ever. You won't regret buying it.

A Lesson In Directing
This film could have been dire... the acting could have been lousy; the sets could have been unrealistic; the score could have been overly-sentimental but - worst of all - the direction could have been 'Hollywood'. No... Tom Hanks pulls off a masterful performance, the sets were uncomfortably real; the score was understated and the direction... the direction was a treat. A thought-provoking film that takes the viewer on a journey of 'what if's. An almost biblical atmosphere unfolds as Hanks realises he's completely alone, and the director handles the psychological effects of the ordeal with particular skill and sensitivity. It's not easy carrying the majority of a film single handedly but Hanks is, as always, engaging to the end.

Moving...
This film obviously seems to cause controversy in viewers. Some love it for it's sentimentality, some hate it for it's so-called tedium. Although both sides put forward some very good points... i have to say that i side with the lovers.

People who disagree with me fail to remember that Tom Hanks, a stunningly good actor, is basically acting towards a football for three-quarters of the film. I think you also forget how hard it is to have no other actors to bounce dialogue off. Tom Hanks' ability to keep the audience completely encapsulated still astounds me. Although there are long expanses of time in which there is no dialogue, I found myself watching the character's every move with increased enthusiasm as he battled, physically and mentally, with nature. The long silences, with only the rushing waves as a sound barrier, seem to accentuate his loneliness... and truly made me empathise with the character that you grow to love as the film progresses.

The film follows a man marooned on a desert island alone, having survived a plane crash that killed the pilots. He must slowly learn to survive and stay sane in conditions that are alien to him. This film truly makes you think about how you would cope in his situation, and provides a reallistic outlook on the effect of solitude on a man. The ending is bitter-sweet, reallistic... yet it left me with a feeling of satisfaction that no other film can induce...