*** 1/2 Needs a middle

Rating: Null/10 (28 March 2001)

Tom Hanks' amazing performance is the best reason to watch this excellent drama directed by Robert Zemeckis. The second of two films Zemeckis made in the year 2000 (the other being What Lies Beneath) this is definitely not the superior of the two but is still a worthwhile tale of a Federal Express supervisor stranded on a deserted island for four years after his company plane crashes into the Pacific Ocean. Helen Hunt plays the devoted girlfriend who doesn't know to wait for him back home. The film is painfully missing a middle, so once the scenes of isolation are (quickly) over, one is led to believe that Hanks' readjustment to the so-called normal society back home is really the heart of the story. Sadly, this aspect of the plot is also underdeveloped, leaving a good movie that doesn't quite know what it's about.