Oh God, Wilson! Never Again, Never Again, Never Again!

– Tom Hanks’ character Chuck Noland in Cast Away

I’ve said time and again that the majority of my classless, crass Indian and NRI readers wouldn’t be able to locate their hanging scrotal appendages a.k.a balls with two hands and a flashlight!

When one of the countless nitwits thronging the SI blog extraordinaire insisted I see Tom Hanks’ 2000 film  Cast Away, yours truly succumbed to the pleas in a moment of weakness.

Alas, little did I know that a fool and his precious time are soon parted.

And so in high dudgeon and fortified by a full bottle of cheap California Champagne ($6.99 Cook’s Sweet Rose) and some cheap Barefoot Cabernet Sauvignon $11.99 1.5 ltr Red Wine after that to maintain the high, I pen this review.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis (yeah, he of Forrest Gump fame), Cast Away has little to recommend it except some rare flashes of attractive photography.

Cast Away – Adrift

So, what the fuck is Cast Away all about?

If you ask me, the film in its essence is a mediocre FedEx commercial.

Since many of you nincompoops in the Indian hinterlands have no clue what FedEx is, some education is in order.

FedEx is an American company that provides a high-end package delivery service, a glorified, high-end postal service if you will (as that ReThuglican dickhead and my former veep Dick Cheney would say).

Streaks of lightning presage a storm in the middle of the night and before you know it a FedEx aircraft with our hero Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) in it goes down in the middle of the endless Pacific, several hundred miles off its charted route.

Our FedEx employee Chuck, the one who tells his girlfriend Kelly at the airport as he walks away from the SUV that I’ll be right back, is the sole survivor of the crash in the churning seas in a yellow raft.

How the fella survives 1,500 days on a deserted island on a diet of crab and coconut water laxative and later at sea on a shaky raft makes up the rest of the uninteresting story.

Did I say deserted island?

Well, that’s not completely true.

Because Chuck has Wilson for company.

You schmucks ask Wilson who?

All I’ll tell you SOBs is that Wilson washed ashore in a FedEx package!

Go figure!

So, What’s Wrong?

I have no words to describe the wisdom of the members of Motion Picture Academy for denying any Oscars to this mediocre piece of shit..

Bravo! 🙂

There’s much that’s amiss with Cast Away.

First, there’s the mediocre script written by William Broyles Jr.

Where’s the drama, Broyles?

Bloody Hell, a man’s washed ashore on a deserted island under traumatic circumstances and all you give us is Chuck’s banal and infinitely affected whoop, “I made Fire.”

May you be cursed to an eternity in the flames of hell.

There’s hardly a moment in Chuck Noland’s enforced stay on the island including the first attempt at leaving the place or the climbing up of the peak that left any impression on us, even in our sober state when we watched the film.

Definitely not the final scribble on the cave wall that was a paean to his lover Kelly.

Maybe, the movie made a big impact in 2000 when the viewers were still reeling under the spell of Forrest Gump,.

But not in 2012!

I’ve SEEN BETTER!

Then, there’s Tom Hanks’ pathetic attempt at acting!

There was not a single scene on the island where I thought this midget delivered the goods!

Not even in that ‘dramatic frame’ in the cave when he tries dental surgery of a painful tooth with the skating shoes.

Not when he grew a beard.

Not when he tried to break the green coconut.

If the enforced isolation on the deserted island was ho-hum, the return to civilization after the rescue by the ship was even more dull.

The photography was OK in bits.

There was one scene where Tom Hanks’ Chuck Noland is lying on his back in the cave with his striking pink lips.

I thought that was a pretty piece.

There were also a couple of shots from atop the peak where the sea shone lustrous and inviting.

Otherwise, the movie is hopelessly mediocre!

As is the soundtrack!

And can someone tell SI how Noland embarks on his grand escape on that rickety raft with so little food?

Avoid Cast Away if you schmucks value your time.