Film pick: All is lost (PG13)

ALL IS LOST (PG13) 106 minutes

Rating: 4/5

After making the acclaimed independently produced financial crisis thriller Margin Call (2011), writer-director J.C. Chandor could have waited for Hollywood to come courting with promises of huge budgets and extravagant sets. Instead, he made another indie film.

In this, Robert Redford (above) plays a sailor stranded in the Indian Ocean trying to stay alive.

Despite the lack of big studio dollars, there is nothing here that looks cheap or cheesy. Chandor, working with underwater photography specialist Peter Zuccarini and cinematographer Frank G. Demarco (whom he also worked with on Margin Call), strives for and achieves an understated realism. The film has little dialogue.

Redford's leathery but still-handsome visage also carries the weight of the film with extraordinary grace.

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