The real SURVIVOR!

Rating: Null/10 (31 March 2001)

You know, it would be refreshing to see Tom Hanks take a
couple of years off from movies and do some stage work. He could undeniably
get away with it. He IS 'Cast Away'. There is no other performer in this
film who even holds a candle to him. To work for the better half of this
film stranded on a desert island, Hanks thoroughly convinced me that he WAS
stuck on this island and I had to remind myself from time to time that it
was only a movie. Director Robert Zemeckis stages one of the most realistic
plane crashes I have ever seen and the stillness which fills the last frame
of the movie with a crossroads as its focus is perfectly executed. My only
complaint is that, as much as I enjoyed Hanks alone on the island, I would
have enjoyed periodic flashbacks of his life while stuck alone to develop
his character better to show him more dimensionally and not just as a
survivor and this probably would have propelled the film into my top five.
Oh, well, at least there was Wilson. : - )