Pretty good - but too bad someone from Fedex didn't edit it.

Rating: 5/10 (23 March 2001)

We're going through another puffed-up time in film making. This is a good story, with a good cast - all brought together by a good director... who's had too many hits. In this film, after 25 minutes, we've learned about as much as good writing and editing could have shown us in 5 minutes. But it just might be that we have a situation where no one can tell this very successful director, "Hey, we need to chop this thing."
It's a terrific story with a survival segment sandwiched in the middle. The structure is valid (we see how the protagonist loses his obsession with time), though I'm probably in the minority in saying that the middle third is just another man-stranded-on-island story.
It's the relationship story that I loved, and it would have been even more effective if it could have been condensed. For example, we start with an entire segment in Russia. But why? Just to show the humor of trying to teach Russians the value of time?
I hope the reason for this movie's 148-minute length isn't to teach the audience not to worry about time.
Then we have a long Christmas dinner scene with 16 people at the table. A bit of gabbing, some holiday cheer... How does this help the story? What do we learn? Mainly that Hanks has a tooth-ache.
Instead of a trip to Russia and a big dinner scene, I would have loved getting to know the Helen Hunt character better. It could only have made the final third even more poignant.
As it is, we have a good flick that feels it needs to give you more minutes for your money. I would have preferred more impact.
It's a shame one of the Fedex people - one a bit more cognizant of time passing - couldn't have put in a good word or two.