armageddon and deep impact. the prestige and the illusionist. turner & hooch and k-9. freddy vs jason and alien vs predator! sometimes two movies with the same plot come out about the same time and one of them really overshadows the other. in 2013, that was gravity and all is lost. what works: all is lost is firmly rooted in one sailor's experience as he struggles to survive against catastrophically bad luck. the camera remains firmly focused on redford for the majority of the film, with minimal scoring and virtually no dialogue. all this combines to suck the audience in to his personal experience, to communicate that growing sense of frustration and dread and gradual loss of hope. sailing in general involves a respect for the forces of nature, but also a desire to challenge them, and challenge yourself. the film communicates that wonderfully as the sailor's resourcefulness and fortitude is put to the test time and again. it's a harrowing and compelling ride with sometimes striking cinematography by frank demarco and underwater photography by peter zuccarini. needs fine-tuning: while film critics would likely despise if more narration were added to this film, some audience members would no doubt find it helpful in keeping their attention and connection to the character. redford is a wonderful actor, and i could actually "see" him making mental checklists and methodically working through how to handle each new dilemma. however, for those without any sailing knowledge, nothing is explained, and the significance and danger of the sailor's situation at any given point is likely not apparent. contrariwise, experts in sailing will no doubt notice many errors in the film which could be either attributed to the character or to the editing. most of these would seem pedantic to a general audience, but it's worth mentioning in such a smart film. i should also note that the lone voiceover at the beginning was too revealing for me as a flash-forward. i would've appreciated that taking place organically, later, both so that we had less of an idea of the sailor's survival through various scenes, and also as a thematic link to him pondering his life at the end. best viewed by: people who really enjoy survival stories like gravity or the martian, but want them more grounded. or people nostalgic for redford's jeremiah johnson. in brief: apparently based on a book that gets much more theological, i found this film to just excel in its immediacy. there is little time for the sailor to lament his situation, as he's constantly doing anything he can to improve his odds. it may be lost on viewers what a disastrous piece of bad luck "our guy" had... to have the container rip through the one place on the boat that knocked out his radio, his electrical, his bilge pump, bashed in his laptop and sat-phone, and soaked it all in salt-water. if you can get past the (in)convenience of all these being on a desk in the same righthand corner of the boat cabin, everything from there on is all about being smart and playing the odds. an experienced old sailor, redford's "our guy" is forced to put his hubris to the test as his old frame has to go through virtually every emergency procedure you could imagine at sea, from weathering storms to repairing hulls and systems to navigating without modern equipment. the theme of "pondering the choices which have led you to this point" is fairly light in this film, with us only having a small indication that there is perhaps family that the sailor has chosen to stay apart from in his twilight years. the ending too, is perhaps fairly straightforward compared to the novel. but as purely a story of "man vs nature", it's very compelling.