Robert Redford gets lost at sea in All Is Lost.
Despite the 2012 film, The Company You Keep, the film world has been without Robert Redford for roughly six years. Sadly enough, All Is Lost doesn't really give him much room to flex his dramatic muscles. Other than a few lines of dialogue over an hour and forty five minutes, this film is absolutely vacant of speech. As the film is definitely a nice one to look at, there is not much here that we haven't seen before in many other movies about men stranded at sea. If you were to take Cast Away and mix it with Life of Pi and subtract the strong character development of both, you wind up with All Is Lost.
If anything, All Is Lost will convince you to never venture to sea by yourself without knowing the proper safety procedures necessary to be saved. Actually, just don't make a solo trip across the ocean and you'll be fine. Is this guy crazy? Who in their right mind would do this? There's flesh eating sharks out there. Hasn't he ever seen Jaws?
All Is Lost is another movie that never lets up in the amount of endless bad things that happen. Over and over again, Redford's character is tripped up by bad luck while mother nature takes the reigns and literally pounds him with every trick she's got. This adds to this already tense situational drama but sadly becomes a bit routine after a while. If anything, this movie would appeal to those who love sailing, the sea and all its violent glory, but for myself the movie fell a bit flat. This is not nearly as powerful as the aforementioned Life of Pi or Cast Away. The movie lacks the charisma of those films and Redford isn't even convincing when he's upset and trying to build the dynamic of the film. Without other actors to play off of, I wasn't convinced by his performance in this movie. He just seemed lost (no pun intended).
If you're thinking about seeing All Is Lost, just wait a few months and watch it at home. There is nothing here that you haven't seen before. Some of the weather effects are definitely realistic and the ocean rendering is flawless but the film leaves a lot to be desired. This is not Redford's best work and its not one of the best movies of the year. It's just standard man lost at sea drama that's been done time and time again. Watch it in the comfort of your living room where no sharks can get you and you can stay dry.
-Review by Chris George