Cast Away

Rated PG-13 for intense action sequences and some disturbing images

When this movie first came out I was watching a Charlie Rose interview of Tom Hanks. Imagine my suprise when Tom mentioned that the original idea for this movie came from an interview of Louis L'Amour. It was 1994 when he first saw the televised interview, and it came out that L'Amour had been marooned on a deserted island. While the interviewer was focused on the romance and beauty of swaying palms, balmy weather and warm sands, Louis set him straight about what a miserable situation being Cast Away really is.

......Paul O'Dell

BEAU'S NOTES: The "desert island story" is actually in reference to a claim that LL made to have been shipwrecked in the Gulf of Mexico and pulled up onto a rock by two other men. He said the rock was called West Breaker (down close to the coast of Venezula), they had to stand when the tide came in, and they were horribly blistered from sunburn. A sponge fisherman found them after three days and took them to Cuba where they got passage back to the States.

After FedEx systems engineer Chuck Noland is ripped out of his hasty "life by the clock" in a plane crash, he finds himself alone on the shores of a tropical island. First, frustration gets to him and then he realizes how little his chances are to ever get back to civilisation. Four years later, Chuck has learned very well how to survive on his own: mending his dental health, catching fish with a spear, predicting the weather with a selfmade calendar. A photograph of his girlfriend Kelly has kept his hopes alive all these years. Finally, Chuck takes the opportunity to take off for home: He sets off on a wooden raft with a sail that has washed ashore.

STARRING: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Christopher Noth, Nick Searcy, Lauren Birkell, Viveka Davis, Ashley Edner, Valerie Wildman

DIRECTED BY: Robert Zemeckis

Approxomate Running Time: 143 minutes

US Theatrical Release Date: December 22, 2000