![]() It’s not that Chuck is a jerk playing someone purposely unpleasant would be a welcome stretch for Hanks. make choices that undermine Chuck’s potential as a functional character in the story they want to tell. Hanks, Zemeckis and screenwriter William Broyles Jr. I suspect the intent was for Chuck to come off more as “secretly charming hardcase” than “emotionally unavailable bully.” Part of that problem is structure, as Cast Away only gives us 28 minutes before the plane crash that sets up Chuck’s survival story, but even with the limited time, there are big misses. ![]() No one remembers how Hanks makes Chuck Noland profoundly unlikable or how director / accomplice to some of Hanks’ greatest crimes against art Robert Zemeckis inexplicably skips over the potentially interesting storylines and favors the most inane ones. No one remembers the unsatisfying plot, the grade-school attempts at symbolism or the surprisingly ineffective characterizations. Everyone remembers that ridiculous volleyball and a gaunt, shirtless Hanks with his wild beard and sun-bleached hair. The movie itself is a lot worse than you remember as well. It’s not just Hanks, although he’s pretty insufferable. … was how much worse it was than I remembered. What I didn’t expect - where my memory of deriding the film for 20 years had let me down … I expected to have very strong words about how overrated Hanks’ performance was. I’ll come back to that in a moment, but I think it’s important in negative criticism to be transparent when something doesn’t go how you’d expect. ![]() That’s how badly I sought to savage it, and I was ready to rock.īut then Cast Away surprised me. But I was also ready to take notes on the specifics. I knew I had beefs with Hanks’ self-congratulatory acting, the relentless product placement and the utter waste of Helen Hunt’s considerable talents as a meaningless prop in yet another Hanks-led “masterpiece” about the triumph of the schlubby white dude. It’s essentially just “What if Tom Hanks was on an island by himself?” I was so excited to revisit, and rip apart, Cast Away that popped a big bowl of popcorn, grabbed a beer and settled in as though it was a new release I’d anticipated all year. Good luck finding a review without a dopey dad joke about getting voted off the island.)īeyond a $100 million acting-class experiment, there seemed no reason for this film to exist. I remembered it as the quintessential Tom Hanks flick - overwrought, histrionic and the kind of overt Oscar-bait for which the screenwriter, from the first draft, highlights inevitable awards-show clips in the margin notes (Earlier that year, the media gods gave Cast Away an unexpected gift with the premiere of Survivor. Along with Chuck's hope of returning to Kelly (which, unfortunately, doesn't end up working out for the Tom Hanks character in the way he originally hopes), the unopened package helps save his life. The package eventually makes it back to where it belongs, as does Chuck, by the end of Cast Away.When we set out to compile this battle of words over the merits of America’s Beloved Everyman, I knew - without question - that 2000’s Cast Away had to be first on my list. There are other people out there to stay alive for. He might currently be all alone, but the box is a reminder that other humans still exist - and another version of life does too. He has to make the best out of his awful circumstances in the present, but there's a chance that, one day, Chuck will get to return the package to its original sender and look back on his time on the island while finally being removed from it. As previously mentioned, though his time isolated on the island is lonely and excruciatingly painful, the thought that there is, in fact, a world to return to keeps him trudging forward. The FedEx package, and the way Chuck leaves it unopened, depict it as a vague sort of beacon of hope. Despite moments of profound loss and despair, Cast Away is a hopeful film.
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