"Cast Away" is a grand drama, with great cinematography and a fine story. The only element lacking is a clearly defined point to the movie, although several were suggested by the plot. It's a movie where the lack of dialogue makes sense, but a movie with too much material, one where a three hour running time would have helped.

We start out in the winter of 1996 as we follow a FedEx package from its starting point in Texas to its destination in Moscow. Pan to another scene where the same delivery van delivers another package, which ultimately makes its way by runner to the FedEx warehouse in Moscow. Here we meet Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a FedEx executive in charge of fixing trouble spots, and Moscow is one such trouble spot.

Chuck is giving a speech to the assembled workers. Time is the enemy, he says and is immediately translated by the interpreter. Everything has to be sorted and shipped out the door by closing time to keep the schedule intact. Case in point, he shipped himself a package from his home in Memphis just before flying to Moscow. What did he ship? A clock, one that's keeping track of the elapsed time since it was sent. 87 hours, a tragedy! That's why Chuck is here, to make sure the Moscow operation is as efficient as possible.

That's a taste of Chuck's work life, and a day later we find him back in Memphis to see his girlfriend Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt). She's working on her doctorate. They go to the family Christmas dinner -- I think it's Chuck's family, where people wonder when Chuck will propose to Kelly. But Chuck gets a page: trouble that he has to go fix in Europe. He won't be back for Christmas so the presents have to be opened in the car on the way to the airport. Kelly gives Chuck a gold pocket watch that belonged to her grandfather, with a small picture of Kelly inside. Chuck gives Kelly a small box, which she's afraid to open so he tells her to wait until he gets back.

But it is not the be, as FedEx Flight 208 crashes somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. We do see that the plane tried to go around a storm after losing contact with a nearby airport. Some 400 miles off course and the sole survivor from the crash landing, Chuck finds himself on a small deserted island. Luckily, we did see in a previous scene that Chuck is an outdoorsman and a sailor, though that's not the same as having survival skills.

Now we get to the heart of the movie. Chuck slowly has to cope with getting food and water, building shelter, making a fire, and all the other little things that he needs to do to stay alive until he is rescued. One of his first acts is to gather various FedEx packages that have washed up on shore and sort them by destination -- some habits are hard to break. Eventually he does open all but one package and improvises needed materials. He also comes up with an imaginary friend so that he can talk to someone; and it also ends the 20-30 minute period of the movie where the only sounds are the sea, wind, and a few scattered words by Chuck.

We then have a "four years later" message and see that Chuck has adapted quite well to his island. Eventually though Chuck does find a way off the island and back to civilization. We get a "four weeks later" message so that they don't have to show him getting readjusted to people and modern conveniences; one of the things that could have been expounded on. Now the big question is what happens to Chuck and Kelly?

In summary, "Cast Away" is a good man against nature movie with a human touch. Tom Hanks delivers another great performance considering he's not acting with anyone else through half of the movie. Helen Hunt also does a good job though she's not in the movie much. The scenery is great, the special effects are almost seamless, and there's a real feeling of isolation. The weak parts of the movie are some of the survival situations, which most people will miss anyway. I think the biggest missed opportunity is skipping over his readjustment to the real world after being alone for four years. But nevertheless it's a really good movie and well worth watching.