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" All Is Lost" movie

24K views 91 replies 54 participants last post by  benesailor 
#1 ·
Let us have some fun....for those who can get to see this film with Robert Redford, as sailors, how many things can we discover that are wrong? Its due out this week.
 
#73 ·
I Started this post and finally saw the movie...The previous writer is correct: Redford is a bum, and the movie isn't very good. Our sailnet sailors have done a good job finding all the defects. I can add some others: Where was his West Marine life vest? He's jumping around in mid Indian Ocean without a life vest? Was there no engine? Why was it always either a flat calm or a raging storm? He only used his signal mirror to look at himself! Why that silly wave as a ship passed by? He held the Sextant wrong! A real sailor would have steered his boat thru that storm and there wouldn"t have been any roll-over and A real sailor would have sold all those sneakers in Sumartra...
 
#75 ·
I think I posted this point in the other spoiler thread on this movie. I won't spoil anything by this post.

I think it has received good reviews from movie nerds that just like the novel idea of a movie with no words. Perhaps some just like making up the back story that is not supported at all. Others are just going to like Redford no matter what.

While some technical errors are to be expected, so that movie shots can be made or time condensed, there are so many unnecessary errors and unbelievable circumstances, it seems they paid zero attention to detail.

I thought it would just be fun to find the sailing errors, but would like the movie for what it was. It turns out the only fun, I guess, was finding the errors. The movie was not worth using up a couple of hours of my life and I was really looking forward to it.
 
#76 ·
I watched this movie last night and I hated it! First of all, I was falling asleep most of the time since there is no action and no dialogue. There are so many stupid mistakes that I cannot believe that the director himself is a sailor like some people have said.
Robert Redford is never sailing, even when the wind is light his sails are down! There is no rush to plug the huge hole on the hull. His harness is attached to the lifelines! No jacklines? When he goes overboard, the lifelines should have broken. He took forever to decide to rig a storm jib even though he had plenty of warning. Instead of heaving to and setting up the sea anchor, he has decided to lay ahull, leaving his boat at the mercy of the waves??? Where were his portable GPSs? This is in modern times, because he has a tough notebook. It looks like a total novice who decided to take a sailboat and go offshore for a spin. I wasted my money!
 
#77 ·
As a former sailboat delivery skipper currently cruising, I went to see "All Is Lost" in eager anticipation of witnessing Robert Redford dealing with incidents and accidents while single-handing a sailing yacht at sea. I was blown away by the praise of the reviews.

I saw the movie last night at the MV Film Society.

I was not blown away by the film.

I got the allegory of "Any Man" (Redford in the credits) tying into "Jedermann" (Thomas Mann in the literature): I got the inference that everyman is alone against his fate and he answers to his own gods and suffers his own trials. I got the swimming up from the depths to the light of redemption; the standard story in near-death experiences. I got the symbolism of a helping hand into Charon's boat.

I didn't get the practical inaccuracies of the sailing and sinking story. A friend, sitting in front of me, turned at the end of the movie and declared "I'm never going sailing." Any sailer I know would tell her that the story on the screen is so far from accurate that she need not fear a sailing trip. Even in the Indian Ocean.

Much has been written about sailing safety since the Fastnet Race and the Hobart Race disasters in the '70s and 90's. As a result of the learnings from those fatal storms, all sailboats - racing or cruising - have ample books, articles, dvds and internet forum to provide details and sufficient equipment to keep them safe at sea. "Any Man" would have been a safer boat handler than Mr. Redford. The simple omissions of safety and common sense at sea were striking.

A single-handing sailor sleeping in the v-berth forward rather than aft by the companionway? A single-handing sailor topside and on deck without an inflatable life preserver? Without being tethered to the boat while working on deck or overside fothering the hull? Without a bucket? Without a GPS Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon? Without a battery operated GPS or VHF radio as a backup to the main system? Without a simple and cheap solar still for fresh water, without an abandon-ship bag with foil packets of fresh water, without the mandated number of parachute, smoke and signaling flares, without a mirror for signaling? Yes, I used to deliver boats between New England and the Caribbean with a zenith portable for time signals, a sextant, a compass and a walker taffrail log. But that was then (and if the movie was set in that period, where was this stuff) and this is now.

And on and on...

All of these things are required to be carried on sailboats on ocean races and in cruising rallys; all prudent off-shore mariners carry them when passage making.

There are boat handling matters and other "personal choice" sailing preferences that I found odd. But these are not the safety measures that I have mentioned. The lack of the safety measures is what destroyed the movie's credibility for me. And my friend, in the row ahead, won't go sailing because "Any Man" was a poorly prepared sailor.

And my friends along side in the theater, who might still go sailing, found the movie "average." "Life of Pi, without the tiger" was a comment.

Perhaps the praise of the movie in the reviews of the NYTimes, the New Yorker and the rest were written by people in awe of Robert Redford's reputation and his facial grimaces. They could not been in awe of his seamanship.

And what did happen to his bilge pump handle - why did he have to whittle one out of the nice teak cockpit cocktail table? What happened to his hearing? I can hear a mouse fart when I'm asleep on a passage!

But, to be fair, he did do a nice job of patching the hull - even if he wasn't tethered to the boat.

I hope the movie doesn't scare people away from sailing.
 
#78 ·
Saw the movie, pretty predictable and there's two hours of my life that I'll never get back. Some good scenes, special effects and the foley artists probably had a blast, but overall pretty bad movie. It is fun to critique, though, both good and bad points. A Cal 39 would have either bounced of the container or dented it, not the other way around. Notice when he "docked" it to the container by ramming it head on? Didn't even scratch the gelcoat. I would have stuffed some cushions or that sail or something in the hole to begin with and not tack around and watch the water come pouring into the boat. How did that crummy patch job work in all that rough weather? Why in the hell would anyone be trying to raise an over sized storm jib in a hurricane instead of just trying to ride it out with bare poles? And what in the hell was he hanking it on to? Notice the jib was furled and no extra forestay. No EPIB or spare radio, flare gun, etc. Spare GPS handheld? Guy must be a genius to learn celestial navigation so fast, but at least it was realistic enough that he had the tables and a watch. Why would you keep letting the water get into the boat rather than close the hatch boards when outside? Would you really go down below and take a long snooze while you were single handing? What the hell is the guy doing shaving when he knows a big one is coming and the boat is torn up? Speaking of water, ever hear of a bucket? (There is no better bilge pump than a scared guy with a bucket). He did have some belts of whiskey or something, which is what any sailor would have done to get "rum brave."
 
#80 ·
Amazing! It's a movie. I used to rock climb in my younger days. Both climbing and sailing are not "sports" that have followings like football. Why do we only talk about the "close calls" or the time "I almost died"' and yet wonder why movies aren't about the perfect sails on the perfect day with good friends and family. It has a sailboat in it, and I like trees.
 
#81 ·
I just saw it like an hour or two ago. I think if you go into the movie expecting a sailing movie you are going to have the reactions many on this thread have had he didnt do that this is dumb this is stupid but if you go into it looking for a piece of moving artwork and appreciate it as a movie and see the underlying ideas being communicated and look at the acting it was a very good movie.

There were some glaring errors and some things sailors would;t due but that is only because as sailor's we know alot about seamanship, but this movie isn't about sailing. not really. The movie is about survival it is about the capacity for humans to understand and empathize with another human without words. that is a powerful message and it is one of the main things that the director was communicating.

The movie also is very powerful in portraying the many angles of the human psyche in survival situations. It's interesting. That being siad yes there are some errors but those were needed to make the movie more sensational and some of them are so that the story would be more interesting for example, no one in there right mind sleeps in the v berth at sea.
 
#83 ·
Saw it the other day and my read is that as a sailing movie it leaves a lot on the table but as a movie about a man against the ropes it was very moving. I was surprised by the ending (not spoiling it for anyone).

The funniest thing is that there were only four of us at the Thrusday afternoon show and three of us were sailors! Afterward we were talking about it and we all agreed that we would have handled it differently and better (of course).
 
#86 ·
Well I just saw it last night and this is what I liked about it.

It is available on bit torrent now and the copy I saw was good, except for the fact that it was subed in Arabic. Nice screener, not a cam. Not much of an issue as there are not many lines!

Redford did a great job. He was more prepared than I expected from forum comments and very resourceful. Really all he was missing was an Eperb, but I guess that would have made it a short film!
 
#89 ·
I fell a sleep about 3/4 way thru for about 5 minutes. I couldn't figure out why redford was trying to kill himself. Looked like it was filmed in a pool.
My issue with the movie was that put the wrong personality in the boat. Meaning; most people that put to sea don't have a personality type as depicted by redford. Given his attitude he should have died about 3 miles off the dock.

I guess i couldn't get over that it wasn't a sailing movie. It's a movie about a guy with serious mental issues.
 
#91 ·
On that magazine that I was talking about, a German one, the results are now much better regarding the movie:

They divided the pool in 1 to 5 being 5 for very good.

The results are 1- 27.2% - 55 votes ...2- 5% - 10 votes ...3 - 21.8% - 44 votes ...4 - 27.2% - 55 votes ...5 - 18.8% - 38 votes

If we consider only negative and positive opinions (considering the 3 neutral) we will have 46% that liked and 32% that did not like it. How about a pool here about it?
 
#92 ·
This was the review in Sail Magazine....

Spot on..

"The most anticipated sailing film of the year, of course, was a major feature, All Is Lost, staring Robert Redford's an unnamed solo sailor who loses his Cal 39 in the Indiam Ocean. Unfortunately, the film's creators made no effort to make it at all realistic, and any sailor watching it is apt to feel insulted and annoyed.
Redford's performance was hailed as oscar-worthy, but all i saw was a man who looked confused and aggravated for an hour and a half. I had the exact same expression on my face the entire time i was watching him. "
 
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