The place could be an idyll for a week, perhaps, but it's a prison for the hero, who finally gives up hope of escape. It's impossible to take your eyes off Hanks as he realizes that he's no longer in the fast lane but may spend the rest of his days in this paradisiacal rest stop. Chuck, the lone survivor, washes up on a tropical atoll with one shoe, the stopped timepiece, the sodden clothes on his back and a miscellany of packages that absolutely, positively had to be there on time. Somewhere over the South Pacific, the plane is caught in a storm and goes down in one of the most harrowing crash sequences ever filmed. "Be right back," he says as he runs for the FedEx jet. Chuck gives her an elegantly wrapped box that obviously holds an engagement ring. Kelly gives him her grandfather's pocket watch, symbol of a slower time. Chuck is in such a hurry that the lovers exchange Christmas gifts in his car. Their holiday reunion, however, is interrupted when he's suddenly called away to the Orient. He's a globe-trekking troubleshooter for Federal Express, and his schedule takes him to Moscow, where he tries to rev up the Russian employees with a nostrum he holds dear: "We live or die by the clock." Then it's back to his home base in Memphis to join girlfriend Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt, in her best turn since "As Good as It Gets") for Christmas. While less sentimental than their first film, this one also finds inspiration in the triumph of the human spirit over the vagaries of fate.Īs the movie begins, Hanks's hyper Chuck Noland is in a race against time, as an onslaught of frantically paced scenes demonstrates. Robert Zemeckis, who directed Hanks in "Forrest Gump," once again undertakes a risky project, and once again he's silencing the skeptics. And for 80 minutes, more than half its length, it's virtually a silent movie carried by Tom Hanks's bravura performance opposite a volleyball. It's a horror movie for those who play Scrooge with their time, a cautionary tale about setting priorities instead of alarm clocks. "Cast Away," the mesmerizing drama of a contemporary Robinson Crusoe, provides the ultimate comeuppance for workaholics.
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