“All is Lost” a new film by J. C. Chandor, starring Robert Redford is about a solo sailor whose 39-foot sail boat is struck by a floating shipping container while 1,700 miles off the Sunda Strait and which later sinks in a storm. Redford is the only cast member and there is virtually no dialog. The movie has received rave reviews, particularly for Redford’s low key but gripping performance. I saw it yesterday afternoon and it is indeed much of what the reviewers praise – a well paced, intense and engaging adventure story with an amazing, if almost entirely mute, performance by Robert Redford, the unnamed sailor, who the the credits only identify as “Our Man.” Nevertheless, I left the movie theater disappointed.
It wasn’t that I was not engaged by the movie, but I kept being pulled out of the story by little things, details that didn’t make sense, as well as at least one obvious large omission. Unlike “Life of Pi,” which was explicitly fantasy, “All is Lost” is a realistic movie of details. When in the early scenes, the sailor uses a sea anchor to pull the container free from the sailboat, I thought, “OK, interesting idea.” When the sailor patches the hole in the boat’s hull with fiberglass cloth and epoxy, I appreciated how difficult it is to make such a large patch on a moving boat and worried if it will be strong enough. The details are what drew me into the story.
Unfortunately, they were what also pulled me out. Being a sailor is not necessarily a good thing when watching a movie about sailing.
I found myself, for example, annoyed and distracted by the companionway hatch boards. The boat used in the movie was a Cal 39, which does not have a bridge deck in the cockpit. What that means is that rather than having a raised section of deck, level with the top of the cockpit seats; the companionway, the hatch providing access to down below, is open to the level of the cockpit deck. This means that when the hatch boards are out, water in the cockpit can drain directly into the cabin. In “All is Lost” whenever the sailor came below deck, he put the hatch boards in and enclosed the sliding hatch, but when he went on deck he would drop the hatch boards below deck and appear to leave the companionway wide open. I thought “OK this is just editing,” but later, in a scene where the boat is knocked down and dismasted, when the boat pops up again, there is the companionway, wide open. Miraculously the boat did not fill full of water through the wide open hatch.
OK, big deal. A continuity error. The problem is that there are many other spots where instead of being engrossed in the film, I was stopping to say “what?” The storm jib looked really big and why didn’t he raise the mainsail? A deeply reefed main would seem to make much more sense than an oversized storm jib and a furled mainsail. The trip up the mast in the bosun’s chair was a great scene, but seemed to have nothing really to do with the problems the sailor was having with his radio at the time. What about self-steering or an autopilot? There seemed to be neither, though the sailor spent a lot of time below decks. What wait to the last minute to fill a jug of fresh water? What wasn’t it filled already? And on and on.
The one really big omission in the movie, is, of course, an EPIRB, an Emergency Position Indicating Beacon. An EPIRB could have sent out a distress signal to alert passing ships of the sinking. Why would an otherwise well equipped sailboat crossing the Indian Ocean not have an EPIRB aboard? The obvious reason is that it would mess up the plot of the movie. The screenwriter could have bothered to have had the EPIRB crushed in the collision with the container, an unlikely event, but one that would at least solve the problem. A waterproof handheld VHS radio would have also made the sailor’s life much easier, (I have one for my kayak) but I can overlook that. An EPIRB onthe other hand seems too obvious simply to leave out or ignore.
By the time the sailboat sinks (not a spoiler, you see it happen in the trailer) I found myself wondering even about the major plot points. Just as the scene going up the mast in the bosun’s chair didn’t really relate to anything, so too the opening scene itself was a red herring. The collision with the container is not what sinks the boat. It doesn’t really even contribute to sinking the boat. The terrible looking patch apparently survives the storm, as if evident by how long the boat stays afloat. The boat sinks because of damage from the dismasting, not from bumping into the container.
Finally, I realized after I had left the theater and was walking down the street, that while Redford’s gave a fantastic performance, that I still knew nothing about the character and didn’t care all that much either. We knew that he was American, male, affluent enough to own and sail an oceangoing sailboat, and that he had loved ones ashore. Was there a character arc to the movie? Not so much. It was a fine adventure film but not much more. Various comparisons currently being made to Hemingway, Conrad and Melville by other reviewers strike me as a wild excess of enthusiasm, at best.
Would I recommend “All is Lost” to sailors and those otherwise interested in sailing? Yes, I would. I can predict that it will be the best major motion picture about single handing that you will probably see all year — as well as the worst and only. The cinematography is great. Redford’s performance is wonderful. Unfortunately, “All is Lost” could have easily been a much better movie that it is.
Thanks for the review. Many movies nowadays have plot holes and impossible feats performed off-camera (leaving me disappointed, because I’d like to know how the character performed the feat. And so often this happens with action/adventure films, where that would be a key element in the movie.) Sounds like this movie has similar problems.
I haven’t seen the film yet. But I won’t blame you for being fastidious on the technical aspects of it. There is such a thing as ‘verisimulitude’, and the sailing-related details you cited all have a bearing on how realistic – and thus believable – the film is. Of course, the average movie-goers will think of you as a big snob. All they want is entertainment. They’ll come out of the theatres happy, albeit as ignorant about sailboats and sailing as when they entered.
Sorry, I meant to say ‘verisimilitude’.
Great review and I agree with you on all points. My wife and I saw the film last night in NY and the first thing we said to each other when it ended was, “Where’s the EPIRB?!” Mr. Chandor was there in person to discuss the picture after the showing and he mentioned that he’s a sailor, though he would “never cross an ocean by himself.” I debated bringing up some obvious cruiser questions, but thought better of it, looking around and realizing the audience wouldn’t have understood or cared.
For giggles, here are some other things that bugged us:
Where was the ditch bag? He’s making an ocean passage — alone — and he doesn’t have an abandon ship bag set up containing essential stuff like a hand-held radio, GPS, personal locator beacon, hand-held compass, and perhaps a manual water maker? It could also contain a flashlight and batteries, which could’ve obviated some nasty pyrotechnics that occur near the end of the film.
Another glaring omission was the lack of a dodger or a bimini. Having cruised ourselves for a few years, including an Atlantic crossing and back, I can attest that the sun will cook you to a crisp without some cover and unless you like big greenies rolling into the cockpit and your face, it would be advisable to install a dodger.
Lastly, the scene of him cooking after the batteries are dead puzzled us. I have to admit my only experience is with using propane, but to get the gas to flow you need to send current to the solenoid. Perhaps it was an alcohol stove?
Despite all that, it’s a good film, gripping and scary and well done. I recommend seeing it.
One more thing:
I think he had a Nautical Almanac to use with that sextant, but where are the reduction tables you need to make an accurate fix?
I’m planning to see this film, but I really appreciate your reveiw. Having done some blue water sailing on a 36′ sailboat, I related to everything you had a problem with. It’s a pity that an obviously good story wasn’t made better by just getting a few more details right.
Rick,
I’m going to change the oil on the car, instead of going to the movies.
However, i’ll catch this one on the Library’s DVD’s soon enough!
Thanks for the heads up
Thx
wss
Dig into marine accident investigations and it’s easy to see that many and possibly most of the quibbles mentioned here are paralleled in real life. Missing/nonfunctional beacon, no ditch bag; the litany of failure is pretty much comprehensive.
Perhaps it’s unlikely to find so many errors concentrated in a single vessel, though. 🙂
Lack of self-steering or autopilot and no dodger do seem pretty unlikely. That and calling “SOS,” though maybe SOS is simply consistent with a character also having no ditch bag or EPIRB?
Thanks to everyone for their comments. Very interesting and well informed. It is funny. This movie may be like “Gravity” which got rave reviews but was panned by Neil deGrasse Tyson and others for screwing up the science. (No, I am not comparing myself to Tyson.)
It would not have been difficult to make the movie better. The only problem I see is that sailors who watch the movie are likely to be distracted by the non-sequiturs rather than enjoying the acting and the cinematography which are very good. Linda, they should have hired you to consult.
Doug, I agree, there have been many cases where even stranger mistakes and omissions have taken place. But to paraphrase Tom Clancy, “the difference between fiction and reality, is that fiction has to make sense.”
Howard, I missed the detail about the stove solenoid. I sailed for years with an alcohol stove and oven but I suspect the boat in the movie was new enough to have a propane stove. You are also exactly right about the lack of a dodger or bimini.
Definitely a movie worth seeing but requiring a bit of patience if you have spent much time offshore,
[MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS] I just saw the movie, so here are my two cents. An outstanding performance, beautifully underplayed. A gripping movie, we were securely fastened to the front edge of our seats. Great, this movie works for me, mostly. But, being a sailor myself, I am quite disappointed in several things.
There are some inconsistencies, but mostly the lack of our man’s seamanship is simply astounding. Given that he seems to be well heeled, and being an experienced and seasoned singlehanded sailor, he makes quite a fool of himself. I agree with most above mentioned points (no abandon ship bag, empty fresh water tank, the goof with the companionway hatches, no sails used during storm etc).
What really upset me though are some more things:
– He never ever wears a PFD, let alone a survival suit later on. Makes total sense, especially later when he jumps (!) into the life raft. Great idea for singlehanders to fool around this way. Only reason to understand this: If you go overboard, let it be over quickly – I know that a lot of fisherman deliberately never learn to swim for this very reason. But for that our man goes overboard way too often – and then even without drowning!
– Great idiocy too to hold your boat with one line while jumping on a container – no secured line, no PFD – just cool, right? Then instead of securing the line, he holds it with one hand while untying the sea anchor from the container (the very sea anchor which was minutes ago strong enough to pull the whole container away from the boat). Then our man walks both lines back to the boat as if they were chihuahuas. Argh! Honestly, he nearly deserves to fall between boat and container and container and lose both lines due to ropeburn…
– He has no lever for the manual bilge pump at hand? He has to carve a piece of wood (probably his flagpole) to be able to pump his vessel empty? Puhleeease.
– I understand why he shaves before the storm. A last trial to exert some control and composure before the shit hits the fan. Yes, he seems to be relatively reasonable and considers his options throughout pretty well, but how stupid is it to start switching sails when the storm is blowing already. I’d rather had these shaving minutes for changing the sails. The main sail – even when not up – seems to be reefed on the first reef point (we see a line through the reef point on the luff while being loosely tied to the boom, and at some time we see the main up, but not all not all the way), but we don’t see it really being used, and it is never ever properly tightened to the boom. Recipe for disaster which costs him rightfully the mast later on.
– Instead of using a maximally reefed mainsail and a storm jib (or at least the frigging engine) to keep control of his vessel, he just gets sloshed around. No wonder that he gets the big whammies fully on the beam / sideways. Not much mercy here from me, but what wonder that he and the boat survive this.
– He wears only a harness with one tether line, not with two. On top of that he has no deck webbing secured to deck plates or such nor clicking points close to the center line of the boat (like on the boom, the mast, central deck plates and such. Instead he clicks himself into the lifelines! That’s a recipe for disaster. First stanchions love to break under too much duress. Secondly, when you go overboard, you almost certainly hang under the water surface and have hardly a chance to get back aboard. Stoooopid. He could be happy if the stanchions would break and release him so far that he could make it to the ladder on the stern. But that ladder is problably anyway tied up in a way that he can’t release it from the water. Another reason to NOT make it. How did he come back anyway in the first storm? He climbed up his sails?
In some details I beg to differ from the earlier observations by you and other commenters:
– A handheld radio wouldn’t have done much good here – they don’t reach much further than some miles, even in boost mode. If I remember right, he is 1700 miles offshore. A hendheld would help only if a ship comes right by, Well it might have saved him some flares. BTW: Good try to clean his radio with fresh water, but why does he try to fix the antenna connection on the mast top AFTER his radio is toast?
– The boat definitely had a self steering mechanism. You see the wind vane behind the stern pulpit, and you also see the line around the steering wheel axle. The vane breaks off after the first storm and you see the remnants sticking up from the stern rail. We sailed recently with a very similar system (parallel to a hooked up GPS with Autohelm) on a Crealock 34 from Maine to North Carolina, and I was astonished to experience that, steering with the wind vane alone, we came in six hours barely 200 ft off course. I guess we had a really steady reach. Anyway, a truly beautiful system which uses wind and heel alike to steer.
– I thought I had seen an EPIRB mounted to the stern pulpit before the first storm. Might have been just a man-over.board marker, but I thought I had seen an EPIRB. They tend to work, but I heard about failures, too.
– I am pretty sure I had seen a dodger – at least in the first sequences of the movie, but it was definitely down, and gone after the first storm, including the metal parts.
I thought the movie poked some fun, too: The useless boat hook from Worst Marine, the sextant being unwrapped only in the life raft and such were really nice details and contributed to the characterization of our man. So even for sailors there were some nice hints in the movie. This lets me think that the shortcomings in our man’s seamanship were deliberately written into the script – otherwise we would have too much of a superman. Obviously his radio skills are not exactly textbook, that all contributes to see a character who sometimes seems to pretend more confident and knowledgeable than he really is. If real character development happens in this movie, it is probably his ruefulness that he never learned and practiced his stuff in time and went so poorly prepared out to sea. I loved his despair driven, unconventional approach at the end of the movie very much though.
Re mass audience: Some situations got solved far too quickly in the movie: Bringing down a furled headsail and pulling up a storm jib is a real doozy in a storm, especially when you are alone. Jumping without live vest in a storm out of a life raft to right it? Sure, a five minute job… 😉 Anyway, the movie showed sufficiently the exhaustion our man has to go through. Just his overboard experiences (twice from the boat, once from the life raft) are quite implausible. I nearly started laughing when he swam back underwater to his capsized boat and just held on in the cockpit until he was back in business.
At least he wore a knife at all times, tied to his pants. Good sailor! Still an interesting movie to see. But as movie with this realistic, not to say naturalistic approach it has certainly some flaws for sailors.
I’m still looking forward to see the film, despite all the faults discussed here.
Maybe it’s best to think of All Is Lost as being something like Gravity. I’m a bit of a space-nut and after reading some early commentary I went in expecting to see quite a bit that I liked while consciously forcing myself to ignore or at least tolerate the warts. Gravity was spectacular, wonderful, “Jack London in space” as somebody put it, but probably more rife with technical gotchas than All Is Lost simply because the topic domain was even more tricky.
Another interesting point of comparison between the film: some critics were fairly harsh about Gravity’s dialog, particularly in the later scenes of the film. They were absolutely right; people talking to themselves sound either crazy or dreadfully stilted, the latter in the case of Gravity. Sounds as the choice of monastic silence was exactly right for All Is Lost.
After reading this post and set of comments I’ll just have to dog down my disbelief even harder before seeing Redford flailing. 🙂
As the 12th. man comment may one compliment Rick on his film review. One was impressed by the comments and how observant you all were, perhaps alerted by Rick’s review. As a former Safety Officer and Nautical Science Instructor one hopes all your observations, corrected, are being practiced when out on the waters. Perhaps the film may serve as an illustration of how some people who go to sea feel they are above the common herd and do not need to follow safety procedures. Here the selection of Mr. Redford was a good choice as he always seems to be above common things and superior to an average person. No doubt one is being unkind here. Never cared for him as an actor or person so it is a biased judgment. Shall of course not be seeing this film.
Good Watch.
NYCSwashbuckler,
I was so distracted by everything else I didn’t even notice his lack of a PDF. The boat also did not appear to have any jackstays so when he was crawling forward to set the overly large “storm jib” he was completely untethered.
The wind vane is, I believe, a continuity error. The pedestal for the vane on the stern is evident when the boat is sinking but doesn’t appear in some of the earlier shots. When he goes up the mast, we get a decent look at the stern and I don’t see any sign of the off-center pedestal or of a vane. There were lines leading down from the wheel but they look to be merely wrapped around the shaft, without a drum. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe we ever see a vane in the movie and that the boat appears to grow a vane pedestal after the knockdown.
A functioning handheld VHS could have been a lot more useful than flares when the two ships passed close to his liferaft. I am reasonably sure that what looked like a EPIRB on the stern by the horseshoe was a water light, which seem to have disappeared in any case by the time the boat sank. I was also amused by the sextant. He would glance at his watch and take one sight then reduce it without sight reduction tables. I wish I could do that.
Overall, it was still an engaging movie and worth the price of the ticket.
Rick’s point about the handheld VHF is exactly correct, especially when the vessel is so close in passing that you can read her name and hail her directly. Ditto on the magical way Our Man was able to reduce his sights, something I commented on previously.
I too saw a wind vane in some scenes, or thought I did. Our previous boat had a Monitor servo pendulum unit that saved our bacon and steered us all the way to the Azores when our autopilot ram seized up the first night out of Bermuda. They used three Cal 39s making the film including one which they sank and one of them might have had a wind vane.
In the discussion after the film the director, J.C. Chandor, said that Our Man “makes mistakes.” He said, “he should have turned on the engine immediately to run the sump pump to get the water out of the boat.” He’s right about getting the engine going while the batteries are still functioning.
Dead on, CAPT. D. Peter Boucher, Kt. SMOM, MM (Ret.), I think that is the story the film can tell us. And also for this reason an excellent casting.
Rick Spilman, I totally agree with you on the use handheld vs the flares. Maybe our man takes his smartphone next time, haha, there’s an sextant app with the reduction tables built in. Just kidding. There are too many flaws in the movie to be enjoyed by sailors, but it’s still a great performance. Thanks, Howard Berger, for this additional info, that could explain it. Maybe the goof buffs catch that later. Is there by any chance a transcript of the “after film discussion” somewhere? Thanks!
Oh, and I forgot to mention one of the worst potentially fatal mistakes our man makes: He jumps into his life raft with out PFD or anything else, and sure enough he forgets to take food and such – but then he doesn’t cut the raft off the boat but goes to sleep! Great idea! If the boat sinks – and he won’t see this – he certainly goes down too. Is this a filmmaker taking liberties to propel the plot or is this “Worst Marine Seamanship”?
Not sure that a -large- storm jib would be the best in a storm.
Rather than taking the time to shave he should have taken all sails, jib and main, off the deck and into the cabin (even well folded and tied, they can always take the wind and foul up the boat!) and put a storm sail on the main, not the jib. Better center of gravity. Then run broadreach.
One other thing, we really never saw him sailing!
Christine, I agree. It was odd that he seemed to spend only a few minutes actually sailing the boat.
I wonder whether the wind vane was a simple continuity issue. I have read that they used three Cal 39s – one in the ocean off California, one in a special effects tank in Baja and one for interior shots. There are several scenes where there is no vane and apparently scenes where there is one. Probably one of the boats used for exterior shots had one and the other didn’t.
I’d been looking forward to this movie, and saw it yesterday on it’s opening day in Philadelphia. I was disappointed also. He makes enough stupid mistakes to have died about 5 times over during the course of the film. But where it really lost me was the scene showing him asleep in his hammock over a water level in the boat 2-3 feet above his floorboards. He’s finished his flimsy fiberglass repair on the hull damage, but he’s going to catch a few Z’s before he bothers to pump out the boat – who would do that?
I’m a coastal cruiser with little blue water experience, but I respect those who go off-shore as competent and prepared sailors. “Our Man” is so clueless, I wouldn’t want to go for a day sail with him.
Just to add one more problem from a sailor’s perspective. When he is de-masted it appeared to me that all he did to jettison the mast, something that would need to be done in order to prevent it from bashing a hole in the hull, was cut a rope (a halyard?) with a knife. More realistically, he would have to chop/cut stays and shrouds with bolt cutters/hacksaw. Although showing this in the film would have taken more time, it could have added to the tension, especially considering he had already been washed overboard.
Really enjoyed reading the reviews by experienced sailors here. I saw the movie last night, and wondered how realistic it was. I have zero sailing experience, but I did find myself wondering about the decisions he made. The shaving-in-the-middle-of-a-storm threw me for a loop, but I liked the explanation for given by one of the reviewers here. I also wondered why he waited until the storm was raging to start spreading that big tarpaulin thing across the deck – after all, he did see/hear the storm coming when he was up the mast. I also wondered whether boats typically roll over, and then back over in a storm. I kinda thought that all was lost (pardon the pun!) once it goes bottom up. The life raft rolling over, and then righting itself without sinking seemed extremely implausible, also. Overall, I liked the surreal quality of the movie, despite the gaffs, some of which were apparent even to a non-sailor like me. Would I recommend it, yeah, but not to a sailor. 🙂
Before I go sailing with anyone beyond swimming distance from shore, I’ll have a list of questions ready.
A very little effort by the director could have improved this movie. Any sailor, especially one with some offshore experience and a safety-at-sea course, could have done a lot to make this more realistic.
I stopped trying to keep track of problems a few minutes into the movie; if I had not been with friends, I would gave left.
How this poorly maintained and equipped boat and incompetent skipper got to the Indian Ocean is a mystery.
Not to mention that it would seem that the time to learn about celestial navigation would be prior to leaving shore, not trying to read the book while in a life raft. It seems that he didn’t practice ahead of time any of the tasks he had to do during the movie–managing the life raft, bailing the boat, celestial navigation, having a ditch bag, etc., etc. When you see what can be done with a sports-themed movie like Rush (which, as a racer, I can attest that it paid incredible attention to details about cars, racing, etc.) this one comes up short.
Maybe a new ending – segue to Redford in a hospital in ICU as the heart monitor goes to flatline – the entire movie has been the nightmare of a salor as he dies
It was a great movie, full of entertainment, heart pounding moments, etc. The retired captain (who says he will not see the movie) is missing a great actor doing a fantastic job with a subject the captain, perched 100 feet above the water, probably would never experience. His loss.
There were many mistakes. I’ve done a small amount of blue water sailing (I sail a catboat summers, and typically never get out of sight of land). But some of the scenes brought memories of my blue water sailing (and a capsize) most people would never otherwise experience. So I give it two thumbs up, mistakes and all!
I just saw this movie tonight and as a simple day sailor I too was at first distracted by the flaws on the technical side of otherwise marvelous movie. I can’t help wondering after reading comments if macho foolishness was indeed Intended –By the writer, the director and the actor –to be a major part of Robert Redford’s character. As you see and feel him thinking about his next step each time he faces a problem, you know that he hasn’t imagined the problem or the correct action to take. One needn’t be a sailor to know that any good sailor with a normal healthy Respect for the sea would have anticipated the storm conditions he met (Even if not rammed). In his opening diary he says “I did my best” and he did, when he had to, but the tragedy of the film is he started doing it too late.
I spend a good deal of time in Baja so I enjoyed the credits immensely. I recognized places and restaurants and I trust the Mexican economy loved the production. As a life long sailor, boat owner, boat builder and film aficionado, I had technical problems. I’ve lived in that part of the world and it is hot hot hot so no dodger or Bimini would be brutal. I have seen some rigged self steering but lines wrapped around the helm, I didn’t understand. I’ve never used a drogue, sea anchor, myself, and I know a debate exists, but my thought is lay it off the bow, dragging the vessel into the wind is what would be the preference. Maybe under certain conditions, under reefed sail and high seas one might throw astern, to slow the vessel, but I think normally one would want to stay to weather. Maybe that’s why the boat rolled over. I was trying to figure out. How was he going to hoist a huge “storm jib” with the furling jib still attached? I believe one would want to go forward and take that roller down first. One water jug. Wow, not much. I thought he should have a dingy, at least. Oh, wait he never goes ashore. Sleeping in the forepeak, most uncomfortable spot on the vessel at sea, but whatever. I really wanted to go sailing, for at least a few minutes, oh well. I will say excellent acting, to be sure, and absolutely great cinematography and award winning sound and music, that was stunning. As a sailor, I was disappointed, jogging shoes, maybe, but not comfortable at sea. I could find the lack of seamanship tolerable but I didn’t feel like that was the point so I keep struggling with what’s up here. “Our Sailer,” seems too informed to be so uninformed. SOS SOS, I believe it’s “Mayday Mayday.” How does a 39 foot vessel capsize, turtle, for over ten seconds, with an open companionway hatch and not completely fill with water? How come the floor boards aren’t floating around? We already saw they weren’t fastened. No Jack lines? Really? Diving into the raft and leaving it tethered to the vessel for a good nights sleep? A dismasting that doesn’t include hacking through shrouds and stays? You mean you can release the mast by knifing through a single sheet? It just went on and on for me. I was captivated by the acting, cinematography, direction, and music though. Shaving and then bandaging his face under extremely stressful circumstances didn’t fit. I longed for a sailing movie that included sailing and attention to details that matter to a mariner.
Unbelievable LAZINESS by the filmmaker. Obvious disregard for the intelligence of the audience. I was aghast not 5 minutes into this film and it degraded from there. They could have hired any weekend sailor to consult and make this film even remotely plausible. Kindergarten level of understanding of the subject. Don’t waste your time. SOS! SOS! Er……MAYDAY! Hahahahahaha All that money and zero sense.
I just saw the matinee showing of “All is Lost” at the AMC Fashion Valley in San Diego. I was the youngest person in the theater and I’m 51! Ha, ha. Seriously, I didn’t take the time to read all the great comments made on this site ahead of mine, but although there are some issues with getting the nautical details of the film right, I do believe that only real recreational sailors, ex-Navy Men and SUNY Maritime grads (I’m all three) will have noticed some of them. Don’t be too hard on this movie, it’s still an incredible Tour de Force by Robert Redford. Having said that, the three issues I noticed are: 1) The disconnected VHF antenna on top of the mast has nothing to do with the fact that the radio is fried, 2) Having the life raft tied to a boat that could sink at any second is a bad move (although maybe Robert could have actually made this mistake in real life), and (saving the best for last), 3) How did the shrouds, fore stay and back stay all get conveniently severed during the dismasting? All Robert had to do is to cut the halyard with his handy, dandy Bo’sun’s knife and the mast is underway, making way heading for the horizon at best speed. Really? Lastly, a question; I don’t know the answer to it: Is a life raft REALLY that flammable? I smell a lawsuit. But…I loved the movie anyways.
That’s all I’ve got. Speckhahn out, standing by on Channel 16…
now that my busy season is over, i hope to see soon this and re-read all your comments. -tom
Just want to comment that I’m a non-sailor and yet several of this inconsistencies occurred to me, too – so I disagree with the commenter above who said ‘only we sailors will notice these things, the general public will think it’s all accurate’. Not at all. I wondered why there was no sort of emergency beacon, for example, in the boat or in the life raft. I would assume that is standard equipment in this day of advanced communication and GPS. I questioned why he would leave the raft roped to the sinking boat. Why he would try to put up the ‘storm jib’ at the height of the storm. Why he was never wearing a life jacket of any kind. Why he didn’t have more water. Why he gave up fishing after the sharks stole his one fish! How the boat would not fill up with water when it capsized. How he could go to sleep in his improvised hammock with unpumped water around him. So many of these questions I think will occur to anyone, you don’t have to have sailing experience.
More unrealistic than any of these is how Robert Redford – whom I like and respect as an actor and an activist, and whom I enjoyed in this movie – could keep his hair in place through every scene, including underwater! I kept waiting for some revealing glimpse of his real hairline, but it was carefully obscured for the entire movie. Incredible!
Also, since he was studying his book on celestial navigation, it would have been a nice touch to have at least one scene involving the stars… I don’t think we saw those once during the movie. I’m sure they would be awesome in the middle of the ocean, right sailors?
Sorry, forgot one more – how he could so easily get back in his boat after being washed overboard. Even a landlubber like me has spent enough time swimming off of boats to know it’s very hard to get back in if you’re not using the ladder – practically impossible to scale that sloping hull, right? And during a storm?
I’m perfectly willing to believe that most of the seamanship issues happen all of the time. I found it hilarious when he pulled out his celestial navigation book.
My biggest question was about the boat rolling a full 360 degrees… twice! Could that really happen? Like a previous poster, I was under the impression that turtled boats stayed upside down. The first time it went over, he was below deck, but didn’t appear to get much wetter.
The Cal 39, which were the boats they used to film the movie, have deep fin keels and 6,600 pounds of ballast, which is about 45% of her entire displacement, so there is a good chance that she will roll right-side up if she capsizes. Rolling 360 degrees without losing the mast seems unlikely. I am reasonably sure that he left the hatch open the second time she rolled and she didn’t seem to take on nay water then either. Very few of the details in the movie made much sense on examination.
The other day, my son had invited me to the movie thinking that I would enjoy it, but being a blue water sailor (44′ oa full keel ketch) as well as a retired Royal Canadian Naval Commanding Officer, I left the movie theatre deeply disturbed at the large number of basic seamanship skill errors, inconsistencies, and licensing oversights. In Canada, for instance, one has to have a radio license to operate a VHF-FM transceiver (exam required) [SOS vs MAYDAY?]
Several times, I couldn’t contain myself and, whispering, I had to point out to him things that I had observed. As we left the theatre, I made a comment that I would love to give the film’s “technical advisor” an earful!
I checked the wiki website, but the site didn’t reveal the advisor. I will not see it again to find out who the incompetent was!
Was looking forward to this movie; just saw it; gave up counting the errors/oversights/omissions and hoped it would just be a good movie ride. Was disappointed in this as well: Redford seemed to be, well, Redford acting in a movie, as if he knew this one wasn’t going anywhere. The ending itself was illogical on at least two levels (I won’t spoil it here) and then, finally, Michelangelo’s “the hand of god” and a flash of searing celestial light? Really?
Very careless film-making and one-dimensional acting make this one a pass. Good thing I saw it on “Cheap Tuesday”.
Besides all of the comments before me, and even disregarding sailors and sailing in general, a guy wakes up alone in the center of the Indian Ocean with two feet of water in the salon to slowly blink himself awake and slowly walk forward to investigate the cause with nary a peep?
Personally I talk to myself while preparing dinner and I’d surely be waking up whales had I been our solo sailor in the Cal 39. Even if I were tied safely to a dock, the kids in the local flotilla a marina away would be learning strings of new words had I woke to sloshing!
Thanks for your analysis… all of those errors and omissions bothered me too, starting with the boat being dry after rolling, DUH?? The sad thing is all my friends will be freaked out about sailing when all the sailor needed was a simple EPIRB or a Spot… it was totally avoidable loss of life.
My experience with boats is limited to the ones that hold the gravity, yet I noticed some of the omissions noted by the real sailors on this website.
I also thought the storm was oddly inconsistent at times, raging on the outside, yet rather calm indoors.
The movie also disappointed me in missing so many wonderful opportunities to play “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”
It just didn’t seem like an authentic Redford picture, being bereft of that soundtrack.
I just saw this today after hearing so many positive things about it (from landlubbers). I have been on the Ocean for nearly 50 years, including 4 years US Navy. At first I was surprised at the lack of authentic portrayals of many things show, then I started looking at it from another direction.
I have met quite a few “Cruisers” that were starting out, and were nearly as badly trained, prepared, and equipped as the movie presented. I then took it in stride watching the movie as the game; “What’s wrong with this Picture”, looking for problems and thinking how would I respond or prepare differently. I found it to be fun (in a self promoting way). It turned out to be an enjoyable exercise in remembering many of the cruising basics, which honestly I don’t think about as often as I probably should. Yes it could have been much better, even if the Director had just read a few good Sailing books and took a safe boating course.
I think the most important thing that others should glean from this movie is; there still are many people out there boating; trained, prepared and equipped in a similar way. Be very happy that you are able to detect the flaws.
70+ year old Redford does a great job of acting, but they should have started the movie portraying him as buying his first big boat to get away from it all. Then many of the flaws would be very believable.
Great review and great comments. Still worth a look in spite of the issues.
Read all the comments, bemused, as someone with fair deep blue experience I thought it was pretty good.
Okay, on some of the technical problems: They could have just declared a date in say, the 1980’s and goodby EPIRB, GPS, and bunch of other stuff. Others… I was confused by the mast climb. I have no clue why you would want a jib over a [deeply reefed] main or bare poles. Damage Control 101 would have had me packing that hole with cushions, or at least backing up the patch with SOMETHING. I think those lines from rafts are sometimes tear-away. I’d have stayed teethered to the boat, it was his primary hope of rescue. Flares in daylight… he had a fricking mirror and could have directed flashing light at the bridge, it’s why they’re called signal mirrors. My harness is part of my PFD, I think it actually costs more to get them separately. Yeah, I laughed at the West Marine boat hook, he laughed all the way to the bank with the product placement. Killing half a bottle of whiskey would not have been my first, second, or third instinct.
BUT, I found much of it, even his mistakes, credible. I’ve known any number of boozehounds that sail a tramp boat and live on diddly. The point was that it wasn’t a well equiped boat of a rich man with easy answers. I think it was all a metaphor for how we deal with bad things when they happen. I’d see it again, and probably will. Next time I hope I can avoid getting caught in trivia.
I’ve done a fair amount of sailing, but no cruising. I thought the movie incredibly well done, and a great watch… if you are not a sailor. First off, where’s the engine? Yeh, his nav station got soaked from the initial collision with the container, but how did that fry all the electrics? Then the business with the storm jib. He *knows* the storm is coming, yets screws around and shaves. Why not pull off all the canvas, as somebody else suggested? I couldn’t really tell how big the storm jib was, but waiting until things are in an uproar was way too late. And, the big one for me, it sure looked as if the boat turned turtle at least once and then righted itself. Is this possible? All that canvas dragging in the water surely would prevent it. This may be my lack of experience with bigger boats- 24′ is about my max. The other thing that bugged me was the whole business with the sextant and the map. He had *no* idea where he was to start with, had apparently never used a sextant before, teaches himself how to do so, and then is making precise little X marks on the map? Not a skill I possess, so I’ll defer to those that do know if I’m wrong here. And finally, no Very Pistol in the survival gear?
My wife and I saw “All is Lost” this weekend and were both disappointed….not so much for the lack of sailing realism (we both have been sailing for over 30 years) but for the lack of character development. What would motivate an older person to single hand a sailboat when he was clearly unprepared and inexperienced as described in the excellent reviews above (e.g., going off shore without an EPIRB is just idiotic in my opinion). There was (or should have been) a story behind this movie that could have taken it to another level. I would give it two stars at most.
I’m by no means a bluewater veteran but have spent enough time offshore to be seriously distracted by some of what I saw in ALL IS LOST. The lack of prep bothered me even more than than the character’s actions once things start to go south, which can be chalked up to fatigue and/or shock. But, how does he not have a ditch bag packed with emergency food, water and a handheld VHF? The list goes on and on…
That being said, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. Movies like this – that speak to a small, dedicated subculture like climbing, sailing, etc. – are few and far between so people who participate in such outdoor pursuits should try their best to enjoy them, warts and all.
oh come on its a really good movie! its a MOVIE! the EPIRB is easy – you dont understand the back story – he exchanged it for a cigar smoking Oran Utang in Sumatra and then the damn thing fell overboard. You should have known that – call yourself an Old Salt! Also when he casts of from the boat for the last time you can see a damaged windvane self steering system. My only gripe was that between storms there were no waves but then it was filmed in a tank – its a MOVIE!
Lots of great comments here. One I haven’t seen yet is that anyone who has sailed through a storm knows that the morning after doesn’t look like a sunny Sunday morning on the mill pond. The waves are still large and confused but the wind is often gone, making for truly miserable conditions, especially if the engine is kaput.
Overall, it felt like they wanted the average land lubber to sit there and ask themselves what would they do in that situation. And then Redford does nearly everything, about as the landlubbers would have done it – and as slowly. As a few people already said, if you wake up and there is water inside and a hole in the hull, you move fast and yell a lot and do anything at all to stuff the hole for the moment – now! Jeez, people Redford’s age move faster if their cat pees on the rug.
And lastly, all the non-sailing friends and relatives of any blue-water sailor are scared enough when someone they know leaves to cross an ocean. Movies like this only reinforce their fears of the unknown. Boy will we hear about it now…
why did he shave???
When we were kids we used to avidly watch cowboy movies to see if we could tick off the flaws. eg; wrist watches on Indians: tyre tracks in the desert dust: no sweat stains on stetsons, etc etc. We were very clever kids 🙂 Alas! We were so busy carping that we often could not tell anyone what the plot was.
Consider this: A man leaves home; he catches the bus by waiting prudently at the bus stop and he is polite to everyone he meets. On his return journey he repeats his circumspect behaviour. No errors: no stuff -ups. Could you write a gripping story around this?
I once was attempting to read a book while steering a well found 20 foot sloop by the feel of the breeze on my cheek. It was a glorious day with a steady South Easter of about 8 knots; all hatches were open to air the boat after a month closed up on a mooring. After a particularly gripping chapter I looked up to see a small line squall racing at me about 2 miles off. I just had time to put the boat before the wind and soften the blow by running off. This course took me through some overfalls and a few seas broke over the bow and found their way below. Absolutely, irresponsibly stupid behaviour with a catalogue of errors to put Robert Redford to shame…..But is WAS exciting! And, you could have written a story about it; even if only to allow people to exercise their critical faculties.
Worst fiberglass hull repair ever? One layer of glass over that huge hole? Did anyone think that would hold? And slopped way past the hole in what seemed a huge waste. Some plywood salvaged from the cabin screwed to the inside and then glassed from the outside seems the better way to go.
Holy landlocked director! My girlfriend (who grew up in Indiana) would have done a better job with continuity on this film! Some parts were almost laughable in their absurdity. Too bad because “All is lost” could have been great movie. …..I still enjoyed it though.
By the way, when you do celestial nav during the day, all you get during is a line (on which you are somewhere). You don’t get an ‘X’. If you do a second ‘line of position’ — say 4 hours apart — you can then advance the first line by your guesstimated drift speed and direction, and then the two lines will cross to give you a rough position fix. At night, if you ‘shoot’ two or more stars, you can get a reasonable fix, but this can only be done just a sunset, or just at sundown (because you need to be able to see the horizon also) and you have to know where to look for the stars. It’s not very realistic that you could learn that by reading a thin owners manual. Still, unlike many others, I enjoyed the film, despite a bit too much ‘Hollywood’.
I’m not a sailor but some of the technical faults of the movie were still evident to me and prevented me from enjoying it fully. They made me look up for exactly this post, to confirm my suspicions so thank you Rick for posting this entry.
After reading also the coments (especially NYCSwashbuckler’s) there is still one question bugging me: is it realistic that two container ships pass so close and both fail to either notice or care for our man’s signals? Isn’t there some capital sea law they broke?
There are many accounts of ships whose lookouts that failed to see small liferafts, even though they passed not far away. No doubt the proximity of the ships was made closer in the movie for dramatic effect but it was not wholly unrealistic. Of course ,if the sailor had had any modern gear — an EPIRB, a Personal Locator Beacon, or even a handheld VHF radio, he would have been rescued.
I saw the movie last night and I enjoyed it. I believe Robert Redford’s character was intentionally not well prepared for his journey. He did not have a bilge pump handle! His character seemed to be getting away from something, life perhaps. Maybe he did not want to be found hence no EPIRB. Maybe there was not a great deal of planning for this voyage, although he got to where he was from someplace. I believe the filmmaker did a great job of showing how little some of the equipment was used, for example, did you notice how fresh the line looked for the bosun’s chair? Also fresh line on the sea anchor. The character strikes me as someone who learned to sail later in life, getting out of his paradigm by sailing away from something.
All great comments on the technical/safety issues with the film. A couple more crits though on purely cinematic issues. If a harness has just saved you after being washed overboard (even one foolishly secured to the lifeline) why would you take it off and never use it in heavy weather again? If your radio is suffering from obvious short-circuiting why climb the mast to check the antenna connection? Why start a fire (at all!) and shield it from view of your rescuer? And what is your rescuer doing in a 12-footer alone at night so far from land, unless he is as foolish and unlucky as you?
Excellent comments on the technical deficiences of the film makers, but I do think some of you have missed the essential premise of the film – that this is science fiction, not reality. Clues?
1) The container is alive but not very clever! First it attacks the sailboat in the side abaft the beam and above the waterline. It should have gone for the killer blow below the waterline.
2) The sea anchor is alive too! When RR so bravely attaches the sea anchor to the back of the container, it zooms off backwards to pull the container away (either that or the container started off again, taking both it and the sailboat away from the sea anchor)
3) The water isnt like earth water. In the film, as the boat fills with water, it floats higher in the water, not lower, enabling the hole to rise above the water-level. This water also rejects any humans that fall into it, so that RR is twice thrown out of the water back into the boat. This might also account for the fact that the container floats with its back door open.
4) The boat is propelled by a force unknown on earth in the absence of any working sails and clearly no engine of the earthly kind.
5) There is an unseen alien aboard. Most of the time the alien is benign, helpfully steering the boat when RR is resting, but sometimes it just gets nasty and disconnects the VHF aerial at the masthead for fun, although pointlessly so since the radio doesnt work anyway. A lot of RR’s problems can be attributed to this alien. (actually I half-believe our boat has one too)
6) RR is clearly not a human as we know them. He is perfectly calm when his boat is sinking, shows little emotion throughout his troubles, able to learn astro-navigation in extremis, has an internal atomic clock and GPS to enable him to get a perfect fix from a single sun-sight.
8) The planet is not Earth or not Earth in the 21st century. Ship traffic has so increased in volume that in addition to the well-known Traffic Separation Schemes in areas of high shipping density like the English channel, Singapore Strait and Straits of Gibraltar, there is now a massive one right through the Indian ocean. This can only be because, post apocalyse, Madagascar is now the centre of the Western world and vast numbers of ships now ply the Madagascar/Sumarta route
9) The liferaft is also self-propelled. The daily run of this craft are about the same as we managed to achieve in a 39ft cruiser (not a Cal 39 I’m glad to say) in our 3 year circumnavigation
Perhaps I’m wrong, but surely no film production team could have accidentally deviated for earthly physics, sailing practice and human common sense. Mind you, it was low budget ($9 million) with a very small team (only about 400) so it is understandable that it would be impossible to involve anyone who had actually been blue-water cruising if they had wanted to make a film about a lone yachtsman. I guess they decided to go after the Gravity market instead.
“Our Man” apologies at least 4-5 times in his farewell letter. Why? What is he sorry for?
The errors are very intentional. They tell the story of the man. I’m not a sailor and I could tell some things didn’t make sense (his radio not being waterproof, ramming the container, shaving, putting up a sail in a storm, no life vest, seemingly improper clothing.)
So if it’s THAT obvious, and there’s an entire industry of movie consultants at the filmmaker’s disposal, then we can be rest assured Our Man’s mistakes expose him as arrogant, ill-prepared, and ultimately sorry for it.
I think they filmmaker is smarter than we’re giving him credit for.
Hi Folks, came across this web site later. I had previously commented on other sites along the lines of many of the predictable observations among the foregoing thoughtful comments. I am a circumnavigator and have presented many seminars at yacht clubs and about 8 times at the Toronto boat show. Much of my focus has been on how we did the voyage and how we stayed out of trouble.
I won’t add any observations to those already made except one: why is it that a director fails to get decent technical advise to assist in getting the facts right? Is it arrogance? Possibly, or just plain blithe ignorance?
One thing sprung to my mind as I watched it. Would the boat actually sink? I have sailed dinghys in my youth (Wayfarer) and they have air tight compartments to give buoyancy. I’ve never sailed larger boats. Do larger yachts, such as the one in the film, not have these?
Great comments above. One new one: the lazy and incompetent filmmaker sets the tone with the very first storyboard. This states that the action takes place “1700 miles from the Sumatra Straights.” Yes, “Straights”! Our filmmaker has managed to make 3 mistakes in about 6 words: 1. “Straights” should be “Straits.” 2. There are no Sumatra Straits; what he means is the Sunda Strait or the Straits of Malacca, but he was too lazy to look at a globe. 3. 1700 miles could be in any direction; he should say “1700 miles west of the Sunda Strait.”
As noted, the lack of a back story makes the character much less interesting than he could be.
All in all, I think that this film tells us much more about the character of the producer, screenplay writer and director than about the character on screen. All are similar: lazy procrastinators who don’t do their homework, and bring disaster upon themselves.
Both Redford and Chandor had anticipated criticisms from the sailing community. Viewers who’ve seen related interviews and stories about the writing and making of the film may’ve learned that Maritime advisors were employed on the set throughout the process. More importantly, both filmaker and actor repeatedly declare, “The character is a sailor, not an expert sailor, who makes mistakes.” Few know in advance how many mistakes could be inadvertently made in a crisis, which is why we have the word “Accident’ in our vocabulary. The drama is then created as we share the protagonists reactions to the situation at hand. I love the film as a work of art standing distinctive in its gallery of world films; no CGI, no miniatures, animation, fast scene breaks between blue screen fantasies. In place of the typical film tools most of Hollywood employs today we see instead,real time stunt work performed by the actor, expert acting so crafted as to draw the viewer aboard ship without even a dialogue! The beauty lies in the ability to create a story telling palette of the utmost simplicity. I found it so refreshing, so enthralling, I forgot about the absence of tools most action-adventure film makers use today. Superb craftmanship. I think we all can appreciate the quality of a superb master craftsman (Redford) without criticizing the sailors vs. actors choices.
One post script; living in Hawaii, I can no longer count the numbers of inexperienced “owners”, taking to the vast Pacific as “sailors”. Frightening!
i had a very similar experience, i kept telling myself its meant as metaphor for life watch it as a metaphor
All good comments on this film and it makes me wonder how they raise so much money without wondering about the story. If the movie is for sailors then get the details right – shipping containers don’t move rapidly around the ocean smashing sideways into yachts in calm seas – If its for land lubbers – then get the story right with emotional content and engaging narrative. Why they could not have had Robert thinking out aloud is a mystery. Just having a volunteer blue water cruiser around to advise would have made this movie so much better. Did you notice the headsail hardly moving in the ‘storm’? little details matter when they are so much part of the story. I am amazed the directors did not realise this.
However this movie would make an excellent training video with students pointing out the mistakes. For the record he could have loosely tied up to the container and done a better fix it job while the bilge pumps were working OR more engaging would have been to have a heritage wooden boat as the object of attention. I continually talked through the movie to my sailing partner about the errors and for that I apologise…
I can’t believe that none of you “Old Salts” picked up the fact that Redford never actually operates his sextant. All he does is squint through the telescope and never actually operates the arc on the instrument in order to measure the sun’s altitude. He simply clutches the instrument in the half swung position that it has to be in to stow in its’ case. If he’d just read the set of the current off the chart and used that to estimate his little x’s that would have at least made some logical sense. Along with the legion of other technical gaffs that have been cited by others this film is a technical disaster. If they had a technical advisor he should be stood up against a wall and shot. Granted there are lots of idiots who, in the absence of real knowledge and with grandiose ideas, put out to sea, but you cannot plausibly portray a grizzled old salt and an idiotic neophyte sailor at the same time. Worst sailing movie ever!
Thank you James for finally commenting on the sextant. That was one of teh most distracting errors for me. If it was possible to squint at one for a split second and know where I was on the planet I would carry one in my car, or maybe tied to my belt.
All of the other comments were dead on. But the really poor decisions were what got me for the most part. Even my wife – who is not a sailor in any way and just “goes along for the ride” pointed out things she couldn’t believe. The biggest for me were –
Start the engine. Immediately. Nah, let’s just stare at the hole for a while. We don’t need no stinkin’ electricity.
Slosh around in the cabin and on deck and attend to EVERYTHING except filling the gaping, bleeding hole with something. How about a cabin cusion? One of the other sails? ANYTHING to stop the water from pouring through even if it’s not tight enough to completely plug it. At least slow it down.
Patch the hole with – overlayed 1 foot square sheets of fiberglass? How about using the fiberglass to secure one of the interior cabinet doors or anything else to the holl over the hole. Might be a LITTLE stronger.
Run up the storm jib AS the storm is raging – great idea. We won’t lose the sail to the wind, or damage it, or get blown over the side. Nah.
Fish around in the sinking boat to recover – the sextant. Don’t know how to use the sextant, but yeah. That’s important. Not more food, or something to bail out the raft, or lots of other more important things.
And of course – tie the raft to the sinking boat and go to sleep. Maybe he was hoping it would all be over soon and he would just wake up on the trip down when the boat finally went under.
There were a million other little things, too many to list. Dumb little things like using a crescent wrench to tighten the ROUND ferrule on the VHF antenna. There was no water pouring in through the companionway hatches when the boat went upside down. The list goes on and on for me. Redford was great of course, but his performance was not enough to distract me from the glaring mistakes, most of which were simple. Could have been a great story with better attention to detail.
Maybe they should have hired one of us as a film consultant!
Chuck
One mistake I noted was that he threw the sea anchor off the STERN !! Isn’t the sea anchor supposed to be tethered off the BOW so that the boat faces bow into the wind. The way it was lashed to the stern, he would have had following seas, waves and wind beating against the least seaworthy part of the boat, the stern.
*** As a very novice sailor, as well as being a woman with no mechanical experience, I annoyed my husband while watching this movie because I kept making comments and asking rhetorical questions into empty living room space, questions about a boat rolling around upside-down with hatch wide open, yet not filling with water. Also, the scene where he literally pushes the boat back upright — 7,000 lb ballast + boat for 19,000 lbs — all by himself. The boat in the movie represents very much the 1978 Cal 39…look it up…hatch and all look identical. Like yourselves, I enjoyed the movie. It truly IS an ode to “The Old Man and the Sea.” Redford deserved an Oscar nomination for his role. Hollywood is letting politics play too large a part in the selection of movies via The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, because only politics would account for Redford not receiving a nomination. Great flick. ***
Yes, there were all of those technical blunders. But, honestly, what got me was that this guy was at sea a couple of days with gold plated survival gear, seems to have seen 3 ships within a day or two, and he writes a suicide note and gives up. A guy named Poon Lim survived for 133 days in 1942 with not a tenth of what this guy had. I pretty much lost any sympathy for him.
I very much looked forward to seeing the movie. I felt a somewhat personal connection as I owned a Cal 39 for 10 years, and put many thousands of miles of blue water under her keel. We sailed her through a force 10 storm at sea, eventually heaving to with 3 reefs in the main and tiny storm jib. By the way, heaving to worked great; once we did this, the boat rode out the storm with ease. This is a tried and true storm tactic. I can assure you that the Cal 39 is a very strong and seaworthy boat.
Once I got past all the many inaccuracies, mistakes and paradoxes in the movie, correctly pointed out by other commenters, I found I really enjoyed the story and the film. I consider myself both an experienced and fortunate sailor. I have made lots of mistakes and have had the great fortune (thus far) to have survived to learn from them all, wiser and humbler. I have also had the good fortune to have been able to learn from great sailors more experienced than I, especially when we were in the s**t.
I choose to enjoy the movie for what it is rather for for what it isn’t. There is always a bigger storm or a (life threatening) situation we personally have not yet experienced and who among us has not made mistakes that look ridiculous with perfect 20-20 hindsight. This is not a story of the expert sailor competently overcoming impossible odds or eventually suffering failure despite doing everything right; there are plenty of great true stories of this. Rather, it is the story of an Everyman, calming blundering his way through situations beyond his experience and current skills. I very much liked the ending. I respected his willingness to risk it all and live (or die) like you have nothing to lose.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the lack of a whistle or air-horn on the life-raft. That would have saved him, twice.
The movie pissed me off at first, but in hindsight, I think it may be an intentional demonstration of what poor seamanship (and possibly inexperience) can lead to.
(It’d make a great training video, for students to spot the mistakes. It almost seems made for that. I’ve got a renewed respect for having an air-horn on hand at all times.)
Other than the stupid things he did, I didn’t spot a lot of major technical errors.
I’d like to know how a big keelboat like that stays upside down that long with a couple of tons of lead in its keel (but maybe with the waves and the sail up the mast, it could happen for a bit; seemed unnatural though).
Most of the other things that made me yell at the screen were consequences of his actions. It was so excessive, it had to be intended as educational. (In Redford’s 77 years, I’m sure he’s personally absorbed more sailing knowledge than that.)
I think that might be the moral, here, too; it wasn’t the container hit that killed him, but his actions in response. Bad decisions. (Over. And over. And over again.)
I wonder if, other than his poor actions and missing equipment, there were other things placed in the movie to indicate that he might not be as seasoned a sailor as his years may suggest.
Unboxing an unused gift sextant and trying to learn how to use it is a major one, really. (And then laying it pointy-sides down on the lift raft while you slept. Yikes.)
Rather than being distracting from the amazing visuals and great acting, I think his screw-ups were really the point of the movie.
I watched this on the plane last night and I enjoyed it. I wondered what sailors might think and my search brought me here.
I can’t help but comment. I feel that so many of you are completely missing the point. This is not an instructional video on how to properly sail solo across the Indian Ocean. The narration sets it up right at the very beginning – he says he is sorry and he says it was his fault. It is about a man who goes to sea in a boat without really knowing what he is doing. That’s why he’s bemused when he sees the water, not conducting precisely the right emergency technique. That’s why he has to read the instructions on the flares, and why he looks so carefully at all the other gear that he breaks out, seemingly for the first time ever.
I liked this film – a story of that one man and his downfall at the hands of his own ill-preparedness and lack of real knowledge. There is also a backstory, set up in the opening narration, that suggests (as others noted above) he is running from something, perhaps his family.
All the nitpicking and “I’m such an experienced sailor, I would never do this and that” is interesting but for me, it completely misses the point. Seen as a story, and allowing for a bit of cinematic licence (every film needs this or it is either too long or too boring), I think this is a very solid film.
And if you must, if you can’t just enjoy it as a film, then use it as an instructional video like this: “watch this and do everything the opposite of what this guy did”.
Right from the get-go I began talking to myself! How could he not let out some kind of exclamation when he saw his boat filling up with water and finding a gaping hole in the topsides? While, I too was distracted by the obvious inaccuracies and unrealistic conditions, what flabbergasted me the most was the idea that a human could undergo such trying circumstances without uttering a word… to himself, to his boat, to God… whatever. I kept telling myself that it was a movie and it appeared that the main intent of this movie was to have no dialogue…but, to me, a story of a silent lone sailor is like a story of a tree falling in the woods without making a sound.
Ed,
I too tend to talk to myself when single-handling. I also would have experienced a much wider range of emotion than the fairly monotonic character played by Redford. With all the wonderful curse words available in the English language, it seems bizarre to waste them all.
Ummm , start the engine and drive off the
container ?
No float switch on the pump ?
What the holy hell – why did he intentionally head butt the mast ? Lol.
That was the worst Acting I’ve ever seen !
No swell , no shift , just a fake fall into the mast !
Three or four times when it appeared he was done
for , I sighed and thought this idiot deserved it
Oh – An SOS Call ? Lol really ? Is it 1911 ?
With a radio hooked up to a battery lying on its
side . No acid leaking ?
I feel pretty stupid , I’ve tinkered with celestial
Navigation using a sextant and admittedly still
couldn’t find my location in Barnegat bay on a sunny
day , but this guy reads the instructions and aces it in
5 minutes ?
My IQ level dropped as I watched
Oh man – let me get a nice close shave as the squall
approches and ill douse sail when the storm is raging
all the tension was my wanting to shout at ‘the man’ to respond appropriately to
the emergencies as they unfolded……..for a sailor, this was a very frustrating
movie to endure
I’m just a weekend sailor and about a million things frustrate me with this movie. The one thing none of the other post have brought up and maybe I just don’t know any better is how easily the container ripped such a large hole in a blue water boat?? I mean really?? When he surveyed the damage the fiberglass just flopped around and looked like it was nothing. My islander 32 fiberglass is like a 1/2″ thick! I’ve tried tearing up a lake boat with backhoe on solid ground and that really put up a fight. Just a thought.
I can explain away a lot of the mistakes. His EPIRB was malfunctioning, his handheld VHF floated out the hole, he was hooking up his antenna before he tried the radio again. I can even explain that there is no indication that he doesn’t know how to navigate with a sextant. If I haven’t done something in a while, I’ll typically do a little reference reading too. Also, “Mayday Mayday Mayday” is reserved for when the situation is life threatening. A patched hole and a broken radio doesn’t seem that dire, but SOS? That’s just poor writing.
What I can’t explain is why the hell he’d get off the boat onto the container while the jib is still up. A gust of wind and you’re left stranded with nothing but a rope burn. He does that, not once, but twice!
Having just seen “All is lost’ for the first time ( a borrowed DVD) I can honestly say that “Waterworld ” is no longer the worst sailing film ever made. All is lost – is a lesson in stupidity.
On re-watching, some of the sailing sequences in “Waterworld” almost, if not quite, made up for the rest of the nonsense, as least to my eyes. I suspect that I will find all the idiocy in “All is Lost” too hard to ignore if I should ever see the movie again.
Now I know what to do in a sailboat in the middle of the ocean with a big storm approaching. Shave.
WHy wouldnt the Marit Maersk or the next vessel in the shipping channel see this raft on radar? THe Maersk vessel was very close to him in daylight. How would someone on the bridge not see a bright yellow raft? What about the second vessel – they didnt see two flares in the dark sky?
But I do love that Mr.Redford shaved while his boat was sinking. Unbelievable.
I just finished watching All is Lost. I agree with the writer above about the worst acting. The funniest part was when he was inside the boat and lost his balance. then he crazily runs into that post mentioned above. There was a cartoon sound made when he did this. I swear it sounded like the Three Stooges. Anyone know about what that could have been? I coulnd’t stop laughing.
Hi,
I thought there were continuity issues. But I think the issues in the form of “why did he not have or do such and such instead” seemed partly because this person was someone who had just bought a boat and sailed without too much experience. There seemed to always be a sense that he was a child with some money to spend undertaking a task that really was bigger than he imagined. To argue why he did not use a different sail in a given situation is arguing against the whole point of this person’s character which is developed specifically without flashbacks by intention.
Hi,
Saw it 2 days ago. The very beginning made me suspicious: 13. July, close to equator, 4.50 PM and the sun is already gone. I understand that they wanted to portray him as a beginner sailor, but this is basic geography. I can’t stand that kind of mistakes.
Just saw the movie on a rental DVD. I am not a sailor and have never been in the Navy, but I do know the value of a flashlight and a mirror for survival. How about collecting rainwater? And I know enough not to start a fire in a plastic jug, in a life raft. I loved reading the reviews here, but I gotta say I thought Redford’s character deserved to die and earn a Darwin Award!
Hey, I have a great idea: If you have not already seen the movie and want to enjoy it, read this first:
The main character, played by Robert Redford, is a rather dull-witted, but reasonably successful owner of a small chain of hairdressing salons, built and left to him by his father, in his hometown of Norfolk, Nebraska. His only hobby is astronomy, and he spends hours with his telescope making notes and looking at comets, etc. Later, this comes in handy.
Having spent a lifetime land-locked and under the influence of a late-life divorce and the brain damage caused by a lifetime of hairdressing chemicals, he decides to travel to the west coast and hire a sailor to give him a westward ride around the world to the east coast of the United States. Knowing nothing about how to interview a trans-pacific sailor, the hairdresser ends up hiring a man who, though somewhat experienced and a great self-promoter, is nevertheless a bit of a drunk and careless with his boat, its maintenance and supplies.
During the first part of the trip, the Redford character becomes deeply depressed and stops caring much whether he lives or dies, but he nevertheless learns just a little bit about sailing and some of the security/emergency equipment on the boat. Just a bit, because he’s not too bright—you know, all those chemicals—and because he’s depressed. In exchange for these rudimentary lessons on sailing, Redford cuts the man’s hair.
Somewhere in the Indian Ocean, the old salt dies of a heart attack and the Redford character is forced to bury him at sea.
The movie’s opening scene takes place the next morning.
Now, try to ignore all the other inconsistencies and enjoy the movie.
I hear both sides of this; first, as a sailor, the magnitude and multitude of this sailor’s errors are distressing and second, the viewer should dismiss his errors as examples of his humanity and/or his inexperience and enjoy the movie.
The problem with the second is the first makes it nearly impossible to feel any sympathy or compassion for this character let alone share in his trials and tribulations. The technical mistakes are so gross that they completely take not just any experienced blue-water sailor out of the movie but anybody who’s been on a boat or even has any common sense about them. In addition, that the writers saw no need to develop the character or provide any info on how he got there makes connecting with him even more impossible.
Make no mistake, while the cinematography is pretty good this is no “The Old Man and The Sea”. Because of the missing back story, the complete and utter lack of character development, because of the myriad of technical errors the viewer’s involvement is limited to being a distant observer. Like watching a wreck on the freeway from an overpass, you want to feel sorry for the participants but have a hard time pulling much emotion forward for it.
It got only one Oscar nomination and I suspect even that was gratuitous. Don’t waste your time.
I saw it yesterday. Nice to see afilm with only 1 person and hardly no talk. I was amazed by the amount of continuity errors like amazing quick drying clothes, they even stay dry after being submerged under water. Or carton boxes which dry quickly and after that are as if it has not been under water at all. Even inside all stays dry. There were many details which stay unexplained. I also was surprised how an oceanworthy ship can top over like that, not alone that, it goes upright easily even with sail on. After that you would expect a lot of water inside because the hatch was open. Nope. Pillows can sometimes soak up water and other times float like plastic. The lifcraft stays dry when upside down but runs full when it rains. And so on and so on.
Hmm, so the movie everyone here wants to see is the one where the main character does everything correctly after the collision, starting his engines to pump out the cabin, firing up his still-functioning radio and EPIRB and waiting several hours to be rescued before a storm hits … yes, sounds like an exciting movie to me … 🙂
I’m with Richard (Feb 6th, 2014 posting, above). I saw the film on a flight, and loved it, searched for more information on it and found this blog. I’m not a sailor, but yes I noticed a few things that didn’t make sense. But it’s a movie…you’ve got to suspend your disbelief a bit to enjoy them, otherwise you’ll go mad debating which aspects of the fiction are unreal.
All Is Lost is a film about a man who is escaping his life, who has sought solitude, and who in his own words, tried but failed. This is just one more thing that he’s trying and failing at. And boy does he fail. He is more competent at sea than the average person (just like a boy scout is more competent at orthopedic surgery than the average person is), but he’s got a streak of over-confidence and too-late decision making that makes him the perfect example of someone who is wrong and strong.
The film is about drifting, literally and figuratively. He loses his grip on his situation due to his own poor judgements, and he progressively loses (or gives) everything, until he’s left with nothing else but his life to lose/give. The ending is even unclear. Is he rescued? Or did he die with a vision of being rescued? Or is the arm reaching for him a hand of G_d, bringing him across the threshold to an afterlife (hence the white screen)? The film lets you create your backstory to “our man”, let’s you think about how he got there, why he’s there, where was he going, why he’s so ill prepared for such a journey, etc.
I agree with Richard…many of you are missing the point on this film. If you’re looking for a 100% technically perfect major motion picture film about solo sailing, good luck…you’ll probably die before that one hits the multiplex (because, as Bob comments above, who would want to watch that?). If you’re looking for a story of a man immerses himself in nature to face his own solitude and mortality, who confronts despair while shedding all his possessions on a trajectory toward an unbidden nirvana moment…then maybe this film is one you’d enjoy.
By the way…the shaving scene is completely rational. His stuff is coming apart, he has no control over anything around him and feels he’s at the whims of nature. But this he can control. It’s a routine that all men do nearly daily, and he’s 77, so he’s been doing it for at least 60 years. It gives him a moment to anchor himself, regain some control over a few moments in his life, to immerse himself in a routine, to calm himself for what he has to face next…all these things. We all need simple things like this in time of utter crisis, and shaving is perhaps “our man’s” chaos coping method.
Do all those negative viewers go to see a movie for pleasure or simply to find every detailed fault within —does this happen every time they see a movie ????? Get real !!!!! It was not a true story —–but a good entertaining couple of hours
I am a sailer and know the ropes I enjoyed the film —-as a film —–good entertainment
To Len Pullen above:
I would say it happens when you are a person who lives their passion, and, intending to continue to live, has internalized those habits best suited to keeping them alive, that when you watch a movie that takes unnecessary shortcuts with reality, it can be jarring and can take you out of the narrative flow of the movie.
The experience of watching the dramatic and admittedly well-shot (and good sounding; we thought the sound effects were well-composed and mostly “realistic”) visual was therefore akin for these sailors to telling a martial artist to “fall awkwardly” after years of doing breakfalls: it’s incredibly difficult to remember how to do things wrong when doing them right is internalized!
The scene, for instance, where his fallen mast is freed by a couple of swipes of a blade through a halyard has already been mentioned; both my wife and I said simultaneously “where’s the bolt cutters?” Why did he not lift up his flaming half-jerrycan of burning paper, or have it held over the water? Where was his pump handle? Where was his bucket? Where was his ditch bag and EPIRB? Where was his PFD or his jacklines? Why did he sail on port, bringing in yet more water that overtopped his batteries (I assume) to get back to his sea anchor? He could have “chicken-gybed” on starboard to get to the same place!
Sure, it’s easy to be critical, and stressed people screw up things that should be ingrained, but the overall impression is that whatever other qualities “Our Man” had that (ultimately) led to his survival, preparedness and basic seamanship were not uppermost.
And that is what took me right out of a film that could have been better if it didn’t star a non-sailor, and hadn’t been written by a weekend sailor. There were things shown that wouldn’t have made sense to a general audience (how a sea anchor works, for instance), and other things not shown that made a sailing audience cringe.
Coincidentally, we saw “Gravity” last week, and while that film was even more impressive in terms of visuals, the idea that three space stations and the Hubble orbit at the same altitude (also the same altitude and vector as satellite debris, apparently) and *within sight of each other* wrecked that film for me, as well. Space doesn’t work that way, and neither does single-handed sailing, as depicted in “All Is Lost”.
I need to include spoilers in the following reply…
In the end, Our Man died. It’s impossible to drift to a depth of 90 to 100 feet with lungs filled with air fast enough to live and then swim to the surface. Our Man was depressed about something and wanted to escape even into death. He chose an adventure-filled “I-tried-to-live,” “It-wasn’t-my-fault” suicide.
Our Man had enough money to get involved in blue-water sailing beyond his skills and experience. It was his beautiful way to “go out” with dignity; it’s almost heroic.
Thusly, I don’t expect Our Man, who is ready to die, to do the right thing. Before a person jumps from a bridge, the right thing to do is put on a parachute. After a person takes a bottle full of sleeping pills I don’t expect them to scream “Oh my God, I need my stomach pumped” and call 911. From this perspective it’s easy to understand his behavior:
1) He responded slowly to the collision because he was ready to die. He did the right thing by patching the hole, but half-heartedly.
2) He slept without bedding in one of the least comfortable places of his boat because he was depressed and didn’t care.
3) I was thinking, what an idiot using his wrench way up there without tying the cord to his wrist. While the cord was waving in the wind, I was just waiting for it to fall out of his hand into the sea. I thought he was an idiot because I still didn’t understand his feelings.
4) He shaved in preparation to die, just as some vets put on their parade uniform before pulling the trigger on their service weapon. He was thinking about the way they would find his body. He wasn’t thinking about the right thing to do with the storm quickly approaching.
5) He hesitated to throw his message in a bottle because he didn’t want his last message in life to be a lie. He knew something was wrong about what he wrote. He would have found the truth if he shared his feelings with someone.
A lot of the failures after the collision snowballed to his final do-or-die, I-don’t-care, “I tried to do my best” heroic suicide.
I only named a few of Our Man’s senseless behaviors. His ready-to-die careless attitude makes it easy to understand all the other senseless behaviors described in other replies. The mistakes in the movie are another subject. The producers either didn’t have enough resources or, for reasons unknown to me, they were careless.
This was a great movie not only for new-sailor training, but to learn what can happen to a loner afraid to share his feelings. It’s important to take the initiative to get someone to talk about what’s bothering them. Don’t let someone live alone in depression.
…For this, I give five stars to Robert Redford and everyone else who decided to give a part of their life to make this movie.
I’m not a sailor, but work with fiberglass and carbon fiber, and the fixing he did it in his boat was terrible.
The sailor was unlucky he hit a container and it poked a hole just where water poured straight onto his radio. I am not sure what propulsion system the container was using at the time because his boat was becalmed. Going back for the sea anchor on a tack that immersed his hole again was crazy when he knew how to keep it out of the water. Deliberate filling of the boat with more water just to retrieve a piece of non-essential equipment, possible pointer to ego problem of aged can-do retiree? Yes it was a crappy looking patch but good enough to make it to port unless you hit a storm. You need ‘suspension of disbelief’ to enjoy movies and look for reasons why it is OK on a logical level. With enough wind it is possible for a boat to sail just with wind pressure on the hull. A 76 year old man hauls himself out of a heaving ocean with bare hands on a three quarter inch rope back onto his the deck of his yacht and still has the storm jib in his hands too. Only Robert Redford could do that, he could be a retired agent of Shield. Really this film is full of improbable elements like nearly getting run over by ships in a shipping lane that is two hundred miles wide. They can’t find a missing Jumbo Jet in the Indian Ocean let alone a life raft. I really appreciate this site and all the comments by sailors and film lovers. This movie had excellent production values with the underwater tank scenes providing great clarity of Robert Redford holding his breath for incredibly long periods while exerting himself. Even at the end when he incinerated his lifeboat in a cry for help and gave up and sank. He was a good 20 or 30 feet down after 40 seconds before he saw torchlight from above and decided to swim back up. Nobody else but Robert Redford could do that. Maybe Shield have given him gills. When he was a younger man he put the Injuns in their place as ‘Jeremiah Johnson’. As many technical faults this movie has for sailors, ‘Gravity’ is worse by far for any space buff. I was pleased Robert Redford was saved but disappointed the mouthy Sandra Bullock didn’t burn up on re-entry. I really hope they don’t make Sandra Bullock a Shield Agent.
The absolute first thing I would have done was start the diesel and pull away from the container. I’d then drop the sails, and deploy the liferaft. I’d hook a halyard to the liferaft, and flood it for ballast. I’d then winch on the halyard to heel the boat to port so I could patch the hole out of the water. I’d leave the engine running until the bilge pump was done evacuating the water, then shut it down, bail and stow the liferaft, and work on the radio. I’d sail with a main only toward the nearest land. In storms, I’d drop the main and motor at low speed into the waves. I’d spend every waking moment closing the distance to shore.
Just saw this. Comparisons to Gravity are spot-on, and you don’t need to be an expert in either field for the large technical goofs made to goose-up the appeal of the scripts but remove anyone with an active mind from the experience. I’m not a sailor, but when I mountain bike in remote areas, especially solo, I take my $150 Spot satellite tracker/beacon. Just silly he wouldn’t have one or the nautical equivalent. In Gravity the main character is and MD with a dead kid and a broken marriage. Drawn for sympathy, not realism. Her awkwardness in space is supposed to endear her character to the audience. So an MD is hired to repair telecom hardware in space? All the electrical engineer astronauts suddenly vanish? That treats the audience like idiots, and the execs who greenlighted this stuff sure should have put a SME on the payroll- cost 1/1,000 of the actor’s salary. Lazy screenwriting too.
As a retired Naval Officer and Aviator I have long understood the folly of comment about the technical aspects of movies. My sub-specialty of Naval Training further inhibits comments which would be issued in the hope of instructing movie-goers in the safety aspects of activity or profession. And, of course, declarations from my wife about how I “suck all of the fun out of a movie” provide the strongest incentive to shut up and view the cinema in silence.
After reading the comments about this movie there is little doubt why the majority of “rag-baggers” are considered to be the elite snobs of those of us who spend time on the water.
It is a movie, folks, not a safety training flick or a “sailing for dummies” manual. You are supposed to sit quietly, eat your popcorn, drink your coke and invest a couple of hours of your life in fantasy (or at least in interactions or situations in which you will probably not participate in real life).
Oh yes, please turn off your smart phone. If the Coast Guard needs your assistance they will undoubtedly send someone to retrieve you.
When the range of stupid errors and mistakes got so damn distracting, the movie turned from drama to comedy.
Thank you, Old Aviator. From what I can tell after reading these comments, sailors are awfully stuck up, pedantic snoots. It was a movie, and a pretty good one. Yes, there were unrealistic errors. Please find me a movie that doesn’t have them. I’m a former Air Force pilot and now a commercial airline pilot and part-time flight instructor. Does that prevent me from enjoying Top Gun or Flight? No, no it does not.
So “sailors are awfully stuck up, pedantic snoots?” I will not share my views of aviators.
I am not a sailor and the movie offended me the guy was a dumb ass he must have inherited the boat, he was to stupid to make that kind of money to buy it. Another thing he was so out of shape all he did was sleep wile his vote was sinking the movie sucked.
I should have worded that better. I was speaking in the context of these comments. But when the majority of those making comments express such a disgust at fictional errors that they are unable to watch a movie for what it is, then it makes them sound like insufferable bores. It wasn’t a how to film or a documentary. I’m a huge Star Trek fan (TNG, not the OS) and yet I’m still capable of enjoying it even though they regularly defy the laws of nature.
You obviously don’t get it. There are very few movies made about sailing. Lots of sailors, including myself, were looking forward to seeing the movie. It turned out to be virtually unwatchable. The number of needlessly stupid details was a huge distraction, not to mention making the story itself senseless. Clearly, the actors, director and producer did not know the first thing about sailing.
It would have been easy to hire someone who had a clue about sailing. When Ang Lee directed the movie, Life of Pi, much of which took place in a lifeboat, he hired Steven Callahan, who survived 76 days in a life raft. Even though Life of Pi is largely fantasy, Ang Lee wanted to get the details right. If J. C. Chandor had bothered to put an actual sailor on staff he might not have made such a stupid movie.
Wow I think I have to side with Young Aviator here. I’ve been sailing since I was a Sea Scout in the 60’s and have numerous open ocean experiences. Yeah I noticed all the problems everyone here mentioned, but who cares? I’m guessing a film of any of your adventures would be pretty boring since none of you make mistakes and are complete exemplars of safety and professionalism. It sounds more like you’re mad that the filmmakers didn’t personally call you to be technical advisors.
Well, that is a bizarre suggestion, though anybody who has spent more than a few hours offshore could do better than the director of this terribly made movie. This could have been a very good film if the directors and writers were not so dreadfully sloppy and careless.
I agree with all the glaring mistakes, but nevertheless, a very enjoyable movie…. It’s just a movie guys!!! But could someone explain to me the scene with the wTer jug? He kept spitting it out? Why? What was wrong with the water?
If my memory serves he failed to close the vent on the jug, letting salt water in.
I liked the movie even though I kept yelling at the screen stuff like “don’t tack to port dummy , you’re going to take on more water” and “put the freakin wash boards an and close the hatch before you ship another big comber” . I found it really absorbing and tense wonder what dumb thing he was going to do next. However , I find a lot of the “expert” sailor gripes above unfounded. Maybe he couldn’t start the engine because his engine cranking batts were shorted out. He had a lot of water in the boat. The lanyard on life rafts are specially made to break away before dragging the raft under. I think some of you experts need to lighten up some. Plus , I think he made it. The free dive record is really really deep.
I am not a sailor, and I really wanted to like this movie because of how beautifully it was shot but the obvious problems kept me from doing so. To those who are saying that the movie would be boring without conflict and problems, that is true to a point. But the problems have to be ones that people can relate to or at least not so far fetched that the observer stops caring. I know about emergency beacons in part because of a really interesting story I heard on public radio about a family that was open water sailing and ran into some problems with a young, ill child aboard. The boat was not in imminent danger of sinking but it was a dangerous situation. They had to decide whether to deploy the beacon, knowing it would mean the end of their home, because rescue would come for them but not the boat. That true story held more interest for me than this movie. The mistakes they made were understandable to me. I could put myself in their shoes and wonder what would I do? This movie held none of that, from the first moments where he woke up with water in his cabin and calmly and slowly went to check it out.
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All is Crap – The Movie
In a nutshell…..
In a flat-calm sea, a sailboat collides with the corner of a shipping container, punching a 3’ hole in the side above the water line
Captain is awakened not by the crash, but by the sound of sloshing water in the cabin
Captain saves a book from the nav station, and then goes on deck for a look. Tries to use a boat hook as a lever to free the boat from the container puncture without success.
Without PFD or line back to boat, jumps aboard container with his sea anchor. Smartly attaches sea anchor to container and deploys anchor, allowing current (?) to pull container away.
Trims sails and sails away on a starboard tack, thereby lifting starboard hull and hole up and away from the waterline.
Shortly thereafter puts boat on port tack, thereby allowing water to enter cabin.
Collides almost straight on with container. Lets the headsail flog. Jumps back on container, this time with line back to boat, and retrieves sea anchor. Returns to boat.
Has no problem hauling in sea anchor.
Lets water continue to fill cabin. Finally returns to cabin, water is mid-thigh high. Then he checks to see if he can run the bilge pumps but there is no power.
Attempts to wash salt-water logged radio with fresh water. Brings 12V battery on-deck, and connects to radio. Tries to establish a connection, but not successful
Next day cabin is still full of water.
While below, hears chatter on the radio left on deck. Goes to radio and makes this message;
“This is the Virginia Jean with a SOS call”
No response and he tries 2 more times.
Drinks booze
Gets rained on with radio left on deck
Next day drops main
Goes up mast in bosun’s chair, piece of cake with 3:1 advantaged blocks. Finds that radio PL59 connection is unconnected, hand tightens then uses crescent wrench to tighten. Sees a big cloud mass and storm in distance. Descends mast
Secures booze bottles first, then secures loose items and fills water jug. Shaves.
Returns to on-deck for evening spot a helm in gale. No PFD or clip-on used.
Returns to cabin to put on foulies
Opens sea hood and water runs in. Removes hatch boards and stows inside the cabin
Goes below and puts on harness (finally!). Removes hatch boards again and stores below. Returns to deck in strong gale. Sees that headsail has come undone. Clipped onto lifelines.
Is washed overboard and dragged alongside boat and underwater. Hauls sell on-board and recovers in less than 30 seconds
Attempts to set staysail and succeeds. Returns to cabin and replaces hatch boards.
Boat gets rolled 360 degrees. Stays upside down for 20 seconds. Everything falls. Miraculously the patch in the hull survives and no water comes in through open companionway.
Returns to deck, removes hatch boards and stows below. No PFD again. Attached line to stern pushpit rail and heaves overboard.
Boat rolled again, captain thrown overboard. Swims underwater and returns to cockpit just in time before boat rights itself. Visibility underwater is better than above the water
Climbs on deck to find rig is down – mast bent, boom in water.
Returns to cabin and put hatch boards back in. Holds head in anguish
Notices that patch is leaking now.
Loses balance and head whacks into mast – is knocked out
Wakes up to find that patch is leaking badly
Removes hatchboards again (still raining the whole time) and returns to cockpit, no PFD
Gets lifeboat ready, attaches painter to back rail, and deploys life raft overboard. It does not inflate at first, then opens. Seas are about 1-2 feet high in background
Gets in lifeboat. No evidence of ditch bag. Nighttime. Gets into lifeboat during nighttime storm and decides to sleep with lifeboat attached to yacht.
Awakes the next day – perfect weather, sunny, still attached to sailboat. Returns to boat and gets provisions, charts, water jug. Retrieves cardboard box. Tends to head wound by pouring peroxide on it and butterfly bandages, Boat about 2/3 under water.
Later watches sailboat sink in perfectly calm water.
Spends day in lifeboat. Tries to figure out sextant. Chart shows Indian Ocean. Latitude around 20 or 23 degrees
Sees another storm coming as night approaches.
Night time storm gets tossed about.
Tries water jug but it is contaminated with salt water.
Gets inspiration and figures out to make a solar still out of polyethylene jug. Throws jug plastic cut out overboard (could be used for something else). Covers cut open jug with plastic sheet. Weights down center of sheet to form drip top.
Fish being to congregate under lifeboat
Container ship passes, lights hand flare but ship does not see him.
Sharks start to congregate under life raft
Nighttime, sees another large ship pass, but they do not see him
Next day – More sextant and plotting
He writes farewell notes. Puts note in jar and tossed overboard.
Nighttime again
Sees lights of ship in distance
Lights flare, they do not see him, sets raft on fire, forced to abandon it while it burns brightly
Bobbing in water, starts to sink under burring ring of life raft, (solemn music plays).
Lights of ship approach burning raft
He decides to swim back up to surface toward the white light, a hand reaches out – the end!
We were actually considering watching this flick till we saw the laundry list of glaring discrepancies on this and other web sites, and we are not sailors: all we know is the pointed end is the bow. What happened to the days of a technical adviser; has the computer age dumbed down the masses that bad? Now you know how the average weapon buff, engineer or sportsman feels about hollywood limousine liberals making films w/silenced revolvers, uncharged pistols (like Squeaky Fromme) did 35+years for holding, and snipers twiddling w/scope knobs and caps while breaking their stance and chambering a round they had forgotten to load: where’s John Milius? Tnx.