All Is Lost

All Is Lost (2013)

93% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 214 reviews)

Runtime: 106 minutes

Directed by: J.C. Chandor

Starring: Robert Redford

From: Lionsgate

Here's a movie I was finally able to check out, via the Epix channels, which I get for free now but that'll be ending at the end of the month, so I figured I'd better watch it now before it's too late. I did not always hear the best reviews for this but I was intrigued as this was literally a one man show with Redford the only actor on screen and you see the story unfold with basically only a few lines of dialogue after an opening letter that's read at the very beginning of the picture. Of course it's been compared to Gravity but this is a lot different, especially when you compare the budgets. The IMDb plot description then the Letterboxd review.

“After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor finds himself, despite all efforts to the contrary, staring his mortality in the face.”

Since it came out last fall at around the same time as Gravity (and due to the plots there were the obvious comparisons, which is unfair as the latter is a 100 million dollar blockbuster and All is Lost had like a tenth of that for its budget) I was interested in seeing it but I wasn't all in. I heard some middling reviews so I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it. Finally, last night I sat down to check it out.

While this isn't a 5 star classic like Gravity, this is still a movie well worth seeing and I was glad they pulled off the gimmick where you followed only one person for an entire film and through only a few lines of dialogue you saw an old sailor on a solo journey on his yacht in the middle of the Indian Ocean experience catastrophe and catastrophe and how he dealt with each event by seeing his actions and not being aided with any sort of dialogue, whether you see him speak or get an inner monologue.

“Gimmick” is probably making it seem like a cheap device, which is not what I want to imply. You get not too many spoken words and yet it was still entertaining the entire time and never boring. You always knew what this boater with no name was thinking just from the way he was acting and his facial expressions.

Oh yeah, and the boater being Robert Redford was a big asset; as he's been acting since 1960, you knew he'd deliver a quality performance and be a huge reason why this film with a unique gimmick would work and not be considered dull and boring (well, at least not so by the majority that have seen it). I also hear that he did a lot of the stunts in the water by himself and not with a double which is impressive considering he was in his mid 70's when this was filmed.

Anyhow, if you're worried that the gimmick doesn't work or that the movie is just that, a gimmick... be rest assured the movie is more than that and if it sounds at all interesting to you I definitely say you need to track it down for a viewing.

I'll return tomorrow night.