Reviews for this film from our members:
- Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: In All Is Lost, Chandor admirably tries to convey helplessness in the most subtle manner possible, sans dialogue. So insubstantial, it barely registers as a film.
- Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
- Excerpt: Una voce sul nero dello schermo recita una lettera d’addio. Scopriremo solo alla fien che la voce e la lettera sono quelle del protagonista di All is lost, un attimo prima di chiudere le sue parole in una bottiglia affidata all’oceano.
- José Arce @ LaButaca.net [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Robert Redford se enfrenta a un mar de cromas enfurecidos en una decepcionante mini odisea. Repetitivo, mecánico y finalmente casi cómico, un drama en el que lo más destacable es el estado de forma físico de su único protagonista.
- Edwin Arnaudin @ Ashvegas
- Excerpt: It took most of the year, but the annual critically-lauded film for which I am surprisingly on the outside has arrived. Taking the torch from “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is “All Is Lost,” a confoundedly boring experience that again has me convinced I saw a version different from the rich, meaningful film so many others have lauded.
- Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire
- Excerpt: The film itself doesn’t quite match his brooding intensity (in the Grown-Up Survival Tales™ derby, it’s neither as moving as The Grey nor as exhilarating as Gravity, and it would’ve benefited from a release before that film and not after). But it’s a vital, exciting piece of work from Mr. Redford, an actor whom you’d have been forgiven for counting out by now.
- Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: Serving as an intriguing companion piece with this fall’s box office juggernaut “Gravity,” “All Is Lost” offers an alternative of isolation survival with a compelling journey. It may not be the best of the year, but it’s a film that you can get a lot out of if you look deep enough.
- Bill Clark @ FromTheBalcony
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: After being Oscar nominated for his first film’s screenplay, writer/director J.C. Chandor (“Margin Call”) leapfrogs forward with his second, which, ironically, features only one voice over and two instances of dialogue, one consisting of only one word.
- Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: The film begins with him waking up to discover that his cabin is filling with water and he is the only person who appears on screen throughout. It is a truly minimalist story, one that consists only of a man, his boat and the endless, empty blue.
- Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: Here is Redford, still looking impossibly boyish when you squint as director J.C. Chandor silhouettes him against a majestic sunset. Then the next minute, he looks every bit of his 77 years of age, his skin worn, his damp hair drooping onto a face crevassed like some kind of craggy natural wonder.
- Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Cuando todo está perdido es realmente interesante, y lo es mucho, en su segunda parte, cuando Redford se queda en la balsa hinchable.
- Dustin Freeley @ MoviesAboutGladiators.com
- Excerpt: While Pacino, Freeman, Douglas, Walken, DeNiro, and Klein joke about incontinence, Redford carries a film about isolation and survival.
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Robert Redford will get a Best Actor Oscar nomination for this awesome, extraordinary adventure on an unforgiving sea.
- Vadym Grygoriev @ kinoblog.com [Ukrainian]
- Travis Hopson @ Punch Drunk Critics
- Excerpt: Burning with a young man’s vigor and stripped bare of every ounce of celebrity, Redford commands the screen and drags us into the watery ordeal with him.
- Dan Jardine @ Cinemania
- Excerpt: The low tech nature of All is Lost accentuates the primal (physical) nature of this struggle
- Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: A minimalist, boldly unconventional cinematic stunt, missing the boat by barely sustaining itself as a thriller and lacking the profundity to be a profound meditation on survival and the brevity of life.
- Kristin Dreyer Kramer @ NightsAndWeekends.com
- Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- [New – 3/27/14] | Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight
- Excerpt: To turn a lost-at-sea narrative into a 106-minute feature film may seem like a tall order, but J.C. Chandor, with the estimable help of Robert Redford, manages it.
- Glenn Lovell @ CinemaDope.com
- Excerpt: … Redford in a revelatory performance, maybe his best ever.
- Marty Mapes @ Movie Habit
- Excerpt: Redford sails alone, but no man is an island
- Ryan McNeil @ The Matinee
- Excerpt: Some won’t be beaten until they believe they are beaten.
- Pat Mullen @ Cinemablographer
- Frank Ochieng @ Focus of New York Magazine
- Excerpt: …effectively profound in its sophisticated edginess with Redford as its designated soulful engineer. All is Lost can be tedious to watch at times but its metaphoric overtones about crisis-driven alienation and determination will certainly float one’s boat.
- Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
- Excerpt: Writer-director J.C. Chandor’s All Is Lost works on a number of levels, but the most meaningful one may be how it relates specifically to star Robert Redford. This story about a man lost at sea, coming to terms with his own impending mortality, is really all about Redford – one of our most beloved cinematic icons – coming to terms with the end of his cinematic career.
- Tom Santilli @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: The character has no name, there is no purpose, no story and no attempt to reveal anything about him, therefore giving the audience no reason to care.
- Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: Robert Redford gives the finest performance of his career in writer-director J.C. Chandor’s literal and metaphorical tale of one man’s attempts to survive on the high seas.
- Matthew Sorrento @ Film International
- Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: A survival story that eschews melodramatic exaggeration in favor of a straightforward approach that extends to Redford’s understated yet authoritative performance.
