All is Lost (2013), PG-13, 3 stars

Robert Redford at sea.

We had a few survival stories this year and last year at the movies with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney being stuck in space in Gravity, Suraj Sharma being trapped on a boat with a tiger at sea in Life of Pi, and now Robert Redford being stuck on a boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The only two questions are: What will he do to survive and will he survive? It is the main point for all audiences to figure out in the middle of this movie.

The movie starts with the unnamed man (Robert Redford) addressing some dialogue to the audience while he is stuck somewhere on the Indian Ocean. It goes back eight days earlier, where water is flooding the "Virginia Jean". He discovers that his boat has collided with a container poking a hole on the hull of the deck. After he repairs the damage, he finds out that the communications and navigations systems have also been damaged due to the collision.

He tries to connect the radio by using a back-up power generator since he wants to get communication from long distance. The unnamed soul tries to survive as long as possible. He is so desperate to get communication and get back on shore that he reads a book about celestial navigation.  Every moment of hope and peril comes to him kind of predictably, as for example, he hears some static from the radio and as he quickly runs and tries to pick it up, the signal is out of range and cannot be picked up. It gets worse as a bad storm tries to get the boat in an alternate position, but as the storm get worse, the equipment gets more and more heavily damaged.

Is hope all lost for Redford?

The movie establishes a lesson of how to desperately survive in a very grave situation of losing a boat due to unfortunate events. The whole movie is intense and we have now two movies about survival but on different places this year and you can scroll back up again to see which other movie it was. But, I am stating is that being stranded on an ocean in a boat with no communication and limited supplies is scary. This time, a person cannot predict Mother Nature.

Robert Redford shows that with minimum dialogue and non-verbal and emotional reactions expressed on the face can hold a movie with tension by just wincing, getting pretty angry by shouting expletives, and figuring out how to get back to shore by using a different set of navigation. He gives a great, daunting performance and certainly one of the best highlights of his career. I would not be surprised if he is nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. He certainly has a shot to win.

Now, this movie is not just all praise for the acting and direction from J.C. Chandor, who directed his debut Margin Call in 2011. I had problems with the predictable dangers of how they are thrown on screen. I felt like again that there was a gimmick with the radio and a shark was pursued on course. There are a few events that are basically not possible like writing a letter and putting it a jar and see if they can find the letter in a jar. (What are the odds?) But, they are just obvious critiques. This is a good and moving film and it belongs to Redford's excellent performance. The movie is told with passion and a soul.

***