Robert Redford

                                                                Part 4

Well, I had to stop somewhere and this is where. Here is the last bunch of good Robert Redford movies.

    Out Of Africa (1985) won the Oscar for Best Movie. It is the sort of faithful adaptation of Isak Dinesen’ s autobiographical novel of the same name. She (Karen) journeys to Kenya with her marriage-of-convenience husband Bror. He is portrayed by Klaus Maria Brandauer and she by Meryl Streep. Robert Redford is Denys, who falls in love with Karen and their relationship on her coffee farm is idyllic. But Denys is adventerous and is later killed in a plane crash. Streep and Brandauer were nominated for Oscar. Both lost- a rare loss for Streep!

Legal Eagles (1986) with Redford, Debra Winger and Daryl Hannah is described correctly as a legal romantic comedy thriller. There’s something for everyone in a convoluted story about a stolen painting, a mysterious fire, and a cop with an odd past. Redford’ character is Tom Logan, an ambitious ADA who wants to become District Attorney. That’s not to be as his adventures with the girls doom his political career. I remember thinking this film was fun, but I can’t tell you why. 

All Is Lost (2013) Is completely Robert Redford’s film. He is the only actor in it! He is sailing in the Indian Ocean when his boat is nearly destroyed by an escaped shipping container. He also is impacted by a hurricane and various other problems. Toward the end he spots a container ship and try to signal it by starting a fire in his life raft. But the fire gets out of control and he has to abandon it. Alone in the sea he decides to drown. Then he spots boat with a searchlight coming toward the fire. 

A Walk In The Woods (2015) is taken faithfully from Bill Bryson’s book about his attempt, in middle age, to walk the entire Appalachian Trail. His wife Catherine (Emma Thompson) talks of the problems she has read about the trail, including robberies and murders. She relents if he will not go alone. He reaches out to old friend Stephen (Nick Nolte) who is game to try it. They quickly realize that it’s about ten times as hard as they thought. And they encounter Mary Ellen (Kristin Schaal) perhaps the most annoying woman in the United States. They soldier on for a while, then nearly die from a fall and decide to give it up. 

Truth (2015) is kicked around quite a bit in this film. In 2004 the CBS Sixty Minutes crew finds documents indicating George W. Bush received preferential treatment from the military. Believing they have the truth, they go with the story on the air. Robert Redford portrays Dan Rather, who was suckered in like everyone else by the “evidence”. The entire outfit is brought to task by CBS, the Washington Post, and everybody else and it is pretty well proved the documents are fake. All involved are  fired; Rather decides to retire. His producer points out that the whole nexus of the event is whether the documents were fake, not whether Bush in fact was favored.

All of the movies in this article are for grown-ups. All are available in some form or another.