Abandoned

It's amazing they were able to turn what, on paper, is a truly epic and harrowing tale into something so bland, one-dimensional, and utterly anticlimactic. Usually movies are able to dramatize and add a level of excitement beyond the real life events that inspired them. This movie somehow managed to do the opposite. I honestly didn't think that was possible.

It's not a bad movie, the only problem is that none of them looks like being lost in the sea for 119 days. I'll take that as a production error, for instance, movies like Cast Away, Life of Pi, ... actors would gradually "look" like they've been lost in the sea for that long (skinny, tanned, sun burned, dehydrated, messy long hairs, dirty, torn clothes, ... etc..). But in the movie "Abandoned", actors look about the same from the beginning to the end (check Dominic Purcell's hair ...). Also, most of these types of movies, it will either emphasize the scientific/technical parts, or the mental/spiritual aspects of human, but this movie just very lightly grazed through any of it, and it's a movie that leaves no impact, no thoughts after.

Substandard. Almost detracted from the story. Seems like the story was told from one persons point of view.

OK, but doesn't quite deliver on its promise, yet it's still very watchable nonetheless. A little bit sketchy on the meaty parts of the story and a bit too padded out on the bits that are less important. Kind of like 'Cast Away', but on a boat and less gripping.

I watched this with a few sailing friends and all, myself included, were impressed. It is a sea story well told.

But let's stand back from the actual real events for a moment. Here's a film that departs from the current trend in several important and positive directions: The story-line is clear. The voices are intelligible (even if the accent is from the far side of the globe for me). The flash-backs are clearly differentiated from the front-line story. There are not 1026 sub-plots. There is no sexual spicing up of the main story. As far as I could tell there was no subliminal advertising. What a pleasant change from the unintelligible mixup-gatherum of multi-plot nonsense that bombards us these days.

Now back to the sea. I found the story moved along nicely with variations in mood and happenings. It is rare for a true story to be so well told and to maintain interest. It even had the authenticity of a self-righteous skipper who was lavish in his criticism of his crew. My sailing friends wondered why he had no real crew in the first place. Yes, indeed.

Would this appeal to a non-sailing audience? I think it would. There is not exactly an excess of sailing jargon and the four main characters have an adequate range of personalities to maintain interest. Don't expect dramatic back-ground music and people posing on the bow! The story.is a true one and it shows.

The film is known by two different titles, "Abandoned" and "Stranded", neither of which really match the story but then almost any other title would give away too much.

One thought to finish with: one of the most important things to have when your boat is taking a tumble is a mirror.