Cast Away [WS]

Director: Robert Zemeckis Robert Zemeckis

Overview

An exploration of human survival and the ability of fate to alter even the tidiest of lives with one major event, Cast Away tells the story of Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a Federal Express engineer who devotes most of his life to his troubleshooting job. His girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt) is often neglected by his dedication to work, and his compulsive personality suggests a conflicted man. But on Christmas Eve, Chuck proposes marriage to Kelly right before embarking on a large assignment. On the assignment, a plane crash strands Chuck on a remote island, and his fast-paced life is slowed to a crawl, as he is miles removed from any human contact. Finding solace only in a volleyball that he befriends, Chuck must now learn to endure the emotional and physical stress of his new life, unsure of when he may return to the civilization he knew before. Cast Away reunites star Hanks with director Robert Zemeckis, their first film together since 1994's Oscar-winning Forrest Gump.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/05/2002
UPC:	0024543036654
Original Release:	2000
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	20Th Century Fox
Language:	English

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Tom Hanks	Chuck Noland
Helen Hunt	Kelly Frears
Chris Noth	Jerry Lovett,Actor
Lari White	Bettina Peterson
Leonid Citer	Fyodor
David Allen Brooks	Dick Peterson
Semion Sudarikov	Nicolai
Peter von Berg	Yuri
Dmitri Boudrine	Lev
Nick Searcy	Stan
François Duhamel	French FedEx Loader
Michael Forest	Pilot Jack
Lauren Birkell	Lauren Madden
Yelena Papovic	Beautiful Russian Woman
Viveka Davis	Pilot Gwen,Pilot Blaine
Jennifer Choe	Memphis State Student
Nan Martin	Kelly's Mother,Albert Miller
Anne Bellamy	Anne Larson
Dennis Letts	Dennis Larson
Wendy Worthington	Wendy Larson
Valerie Wildman	Virginia Larson
John Duerler	John Larson
Steve Monroe	Steve Larson
Lisa Long	Lisa Madden
Elden Henson	Elden Madden
Timothy Stack	Morgan Stockton
Alice Vaughn	Alice Stockton
Joe Conley	Joe Wally
Jay Acovone	Pilot Peter
Chris Krisea	Pilot Kevin
Vsevolod Boldin	Actor
Jenifer Lewis	Becca Twig
Valentina Ananyina	Russian Babushka
Geoffrey Blake	Maynard Graham
Alan Silvestri	Composer

Technical Credits

Robert Zemeckis	Director,Producer
Steve Starkey	Producer
Tom Hanks	Producer
Jack Rapke	Producer
Joan Bradshaw	Executive Producer
Ken Fischer	Sound Effects
William Kaplan	Sound Mixer
Ken Ralston	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

By updating Robinson Crusoe for contemporary audiences, director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) and megastar Tom Hanks created one of the more unusual and engrossing Hollywood movies to wash up on the big screen in quite a while. Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a workaholic Federal Express engineer whose plane goes down over the South Seas, leaving him stranded alone on the proverbial desert island for four years -- a cruelly ironic fate for a man obsessed with time to the point of compulsion. For the better part of Cast Away, we watch as Hanks figures out how to stay alive using the meager resources available to him -- including the contents of the FedEx packages that wash ashore from his wreck -- and his rudimentary progress makes for entertainment as involving as any effects-laden blockbuster. There is suspense in anticipating how he will solve the problems that confront him: opening a coconut, collecting drinking water, and most daunting of all, making fire. Cast Away, like its hero, only comes alive when stripped of the trappings of civilization. Everything leading up to and following Noland's stay on the island -- even the extended and terrifying plane crash -- feel beside the point. There is more genuine pathos in his final scene with the anthropomorphized volleyball that becomes his cherished companion than there is in any of the teary-eyed exchanges with girlfriend Helen Hunt. Although the movie is overly freighted with allegorical and spiritual significance, the scenes on the island work because they hark back to primal pleasures of earliest cinema, when audiences were spellbound simply by the sight of a human being on the screen going through the basic routines of existence.