Note to self: Don’t sail. Keep on dry land. Don’t mess with the ocean, and for God’s sake, don’t ever, ever, ever mess with it alone. At least have somebody there you can eat in a pinch. You never really know where your next meal is coming from, do you?
Robert Redford is on a slow boat to China, all to himself, alone. ♪Love to get you … get you and keep you in my arms forever moooooore ♫ Sorry, I drifted there. Where was I? Oh yeah, Sundance here is sailing solo in the Indian Ocean when his yacht hits a floating metal container. What were the odds? He wakes up to discover his boat is docked, which is a pretty good trick given that he’s 1,000 miles from land in any direction. The hull has been breached and the boat is filling with water. Not a lot, but enough to take out the electrical equipment on board, which bites. It also gets everything wet, which also bites. Although, I gotta believe that if you plan to sail an ocean solo, you’re gonna have your share of wet no matter what you do.
The repairs and the drainage are simple enough. Waldo Pepper has to prove resourceful – one might be casually reminded of the filter creation scene in Apollo 13. The simple repairs, however, were intended as a stop-gap. The vessel ought soon to be docked in a marina for professional attention within a small window; the situation is not unlike 
riding on that mini spare tire some cars have. Roy Hobbs is NOT prepared for a major storm on the horizon.
All Is Lost is a distinctly non-Hollywood film — only one actor appears in the entire film; scenes are extended well beyond usual cuts; there’s a minimal soundtrack and almost no dialogue. A Blair Witch–type apology overdub begins the film, and after that perhaps six or seven words, ten max, are spoken for the rest of the 106 minutes. All of the remainder words will be spoken with exclamation points. We feel Henry Brubaker’s frustration, but he rarely loses it. He doesn’t curse the sea or rail against humanity; he simply accepts his fate has turned, again, for the worse, and, hence, there are new problems to solve. This is a film is which the situation deteriorates roughly every fifteen minutes and it would be terribly easy for Jay Gatsby here to give up. The message of survival combined with the futility of indulgent emotion is very strong and will certainly appeal to survivalists. In the past, I have appreciated these tales of one man against it – 127 Hours, Buried, etc. This one, however, left me feeling empty. I’m all for solving tough problems, but I really needed some greater progress along the way.
♪Down by the Bay (down by the Bay)
Where the shipping lanes’r slow
Back to my home
I cannot go
For if I could
The crowd would say
“Did you ever see Rob
Becoming a bob
Down by the Bay?”♫
Rated PG-13, 106 Minutes
D: J.C. Chandor
W: J.C. Chandor
Genre: Survival, quiet survival
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Survivorman!
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The impatient
♪Parody inspired by “Down by the Bay”
