...And thank god for that.
Robert Redford's performance in All Is Lost was more believable than I am used to from him. But I think that mostly came out of the script not allowing him to say pretty much anything throughout the hour and forty minute run time. That's not a bad thing. I think silence in film is vastly underrated.
A good actor can relay more information with a look than he can with a monologue. We as humans instinctively understand when the water is coming in and his eyes go to the crack in the wall and we know he is already FUUUUCKed. And as amazing as some of that was... well ultimately the myriad issues of the film took over.
I guess now's as good a time as any to admit that I'm not a big Redford fan. Generally speaking, I find his performances lacking and usually in his films it feels to me like he is being propped up by the other actors around him (see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; see All The President's Men). So sitting through an hour and forty minutes, just staring at the man... you can imagine I wasn't the happiest of campers.
Now I loved Margin Call and for J.C. Chandor to have made that on his first attempt is nothing short of amazing. But here he somehow managed to lose me in his sophomore endeavor. At every turn, I felt as though Our Man (that's the character's name btw) made another dumb choice until, at a point, I felt like he lived his life to the rules of a bad horror movie always running up the stairs rather than out the front door. That's the script. You know?
Okay, sophomore efforts are hard. I'll still give J.C. another chance. But All Is Lost is not my kind of movie. And even though I will not be surprised when Robert Redford is nominated for Best Actor, I will vehemently disagree.
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