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Hi, my name is Chuck Noland and I work for FedEx. Oh yeah, and I was stranded on a deserted little island in the South Pacific for four and a half years. That's pretty much the story in Cast Away where multi-Academy Award winner Tom Hanks (The Green Mile) plays Chuck. Well actually there is more to the story than that. As to the story, Chuck has to leave Christmas Eve to take care of some packages for FedEx, but before he leaves he pseudo proposes to longtime girlfriend Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt, Pay It Forward). Then the plane Chuck is on runs into some thunderstorms over the Pacific and changes course to try and avoid them, but they don't quite escape. The FedEx plane crashes killing everyone but Chuck, who washes up on some small island inhabited only by plants, insects, and sea creatures. Chuck goes about surviving the place as well as trying to signal others to find him. To do this he opens up a bunch of FedEx packages that washed up on the island. Many things are useless to him, but some do help. He opens all of the packages but one, which has a butterfly (or maybe angel wings) painted on it (which we learned in the opening sequence is the artwork of some lady in Texas whose husband is sleeping around). Chuck save this package, which delivering it becomes a sort of mission for him, which helps him to survive (that and getting back to Kelly). Also among the packages is a Wilson volleyball, which becomes Chuck's only companion on the island, Wilson (real clever). After a few weeks on the island Chuck figures that anyone searching for him will probably not find him since the plane was off course when it went down. Despite this he continues on trying to improve himself and make his life on the island more comfortable. Cast Away then skips ahead fours years where Chuck is still on the island, but is now a much improved hunter gatherer. And at this point Chuck decides that he would rather die trying to sail off the island than die there (he tried earlier with the inflatable raft that he washed up in). We then learn during his preparations for leaving that he contemplated suicide (but the thought of Kelly kept him going, he had a pocket watch with her picture in it). As you know from the trailers, he makes it off the island and back to civilization. But things are a bit complicated for him when he returns since he was presumed dead. Cast Away is pretty much a one-man show with Hanks as that man. Tom Hanks does a great acting job in this film with the help of director Robert Zemeckis (What Lies Beneath). The rest of the cast includes Chris Noth, Lauren Birkell, Ashley Edner, Nick Searcy, and Viveka Davis. Like I said earlier, Hanks is great in this movie, however the ending was very poor. The filmmakers should not have left off where they did. That is the difference between a good movie and a great movie. So for the About-Movies.com rating I give Cast Away seven couches on the strength of Hanks. Goodnight. Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:49:39 AM |
