Cast Away
I understand that one can accept product placement as a necessary evil in Hollywood movies, but when one movie becomes so obviously obsessed with promoting one particular brand name or product at the artistic expense of the story itself, then something has to be said, as with this 2000 movie that is so blatant with what it promotes that it may very well have been named The Fedex Movie, despite director Robert Zemeckis claiming that the shipping firm did not pay a dime to have themselves featured. The first five minutes are tantamount to that, a shameless commercial for Fedex showing the path a package makes (complete with Elvis music) that wouldn’t be out of place as a Super Bowl ad, before finally getting into the story of Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a Fedex shipping engineer who is forced to travel all around the world as part of his job (because Fedex always gets it there on time!) who is called away on Christmas Eve away from his fiancée (Helen Hunt) because Fedex has a big shipment that just can’t wait, only to encounter a brutal storm that results in the plane crashing into the Pacific Ocean (a truly harrowing sequence) and ultimately leaving Chuck, as the only survivor, stranded on a deserted, uncharted tropical island somewhere in the Pacific, but fear not! Before you know it, Fedex packages from the wreck start washing ashore and soon provide Chuck with the means to survive and stay alive, including a little kid’s birthday present of a volleyball that he paints a face on and makes his imaginary friend. It’s amazing how even during the island scenes as he does throughout the whole movie, Zemeckis manages to get in as many shots of the Fedex logo as possible, from the packages strewn around him on the beach to even when a dead pilot washes ashore and Chuck checks his wallet to find, you guessed it, a Fedex ID card. As far as the acting goes, Hanks naturally puts on a one man show, and there are moments and instances where his acting is pretty good, not to mention a fine physical transformation into an emaciated island dweller living on coconuts and crabs for what turns out to be about four years (and feels like it to the viewer). Also, the cinematography is uniformly excellent throughout, making one appreciate the beauty of an untamed tropical paradise, and there are certainly some cute moments involving Wilson The Volleyball (which became a lasting cult phenomenon in its own right, as well as a plug for Wilson athletic products), although the later scenes involving Wilson’s departure from the film strike this viewer as being dreadfully manipulative on Zemeckis’ part. Even more troubling is the path the film takes after Hanks is rescued, as the story gets dragged out for a good twenty minutes longer than necessary, and worse, the resolution of Hanks’ relationship with Hunt which leads to him looking ahead to an uncertain future with clear eyes, leaves the viewer feeling empty and hollow inside as the end credits finally roll. Overall, a film that would have done tons better if Hanks had worked for a fictional, generic delivery service and we could instead focus on the drama at hand…
5/10