Robert Redford's Wild Final Movie Role May Never Be Released

The fact that most famous actors have a bizarre final role on their resume is pitched somewhere between conventional wisdom and bizarre trivia. It seems unlikely that such a thing would be true in multiple instances, and yet here we are with examples like Orson Welles voicing Unicron in "Transformers: The Movie," Don Knotts portraying Sniffer in "Air Buddies," and Marlon Brando lending his dulcet tones to Mrs. Sour in the animated comedy "Big Bug Man." That last example becomes even stranger given how the film was made in 2004 and has never been released in any form. It's one thing to have an awkward final role on your IMDb page, but it's quite another to have that tied to a mysterious film which few people have seen.

That dubious club has now grown by one member, upon the passing of actor Robert Redford on September 16, 2025. The actor was prolific in several fields and for numerous reasons, so he's certainly not leaving behind a stained or complicated legacy. As a matter of fact, he appeared in two films toward the end of his career which acted as very fitting farewells: 2018's "The Old Man & the Gun," which gave his rapscallion '70s archetype a fond goodbye, and 2019's "Avengers: Endgame," which saw the screen icon bless the Marvel Cinematic Universe with his presence one more time. Then there's the fact that Redford's actual, final, honest-to-goodness appearance on-screen comes courtesy of a cameo (alongside George R.R. Martin) in the season three premiere of "Dark Winds," the TV series on which Redford was a co-producer.

Redford appeared in one more movie post-"Endgame," and even though it's a voice-only role, it's notable for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the movie is a bizarre anthology film entitled "Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia." For another, Redford's part is of Lokia the Dolphin Monster, an eldritch being who appears toward the end of the film to give the ersatz protagonist a kind of Deus Ex Machina absolution. If that weren't strange enough, there's the matter of "Omniboat" screening at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival ... and nowhere else since, having never gotten any release in the past five years. It's a missing piece to Redford's legacy, which may forever remain a mystery to most.

It'd be one thing if "Omniboat" were a travesty, something which would be better left unseen by Redford completists. Yet it's so relentlessly odd that it cannot be easily dismissed or denied, not to mention the fact that Redford is far from the only notable name involved. Redford's son, Dylan Redford, was a producer of the film, directed one of the segments, and also appears in it (hence why the elder Redford was likely convinced to play Lokia). The movie also features appearances by Adam Devine, Jon Glaser, Adam Pally, Amy Seimetz, Sophia Takal, Casey Wilson, and Finn Wolfhard. Then there's the long list of directors of the other segments, which includes Phil Lord (of Lord and Miller fame) as well as the Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), who made their segment post-"Swiss Army Man" and pre-"Everything Everywhere All At Once."

While the film is an anthology and is thus made up of a variety of characters and short storylines, the overarching "plot" of "Omniboat" concerns real estate mogul Jim Cummings (Mel Rodriguez), a Miami native who is on the hunt for an object that best represents the city's spirit. He lands on, of course, a speedboat named "Lay'n Pipe," and it is this vehicle that turns up in each of the film's various segments. You may already be picking up on the vibe of the film thanks to the involvement of Lord and the Daniels, but the net effect it has is akin to watching a couple of hours of Adult Swim late at night back during that programming block's heyday. It's surreal, hilarious, bizarre, uneven, and generally all over the place. In other words, it's fairly on par for a Midnight offering at Redford's Sundance Film Festival, which is where a handful of adventurous filmgoers and critics, including me, saw it back in 2020. Whether the film is "good" is something I can't quite answer easily, but it still lingers in my mind to this day.

Although it's not unusual for an independent movie that premieres at a film festival to wait a while before getting a release of some kind, the virtual disappearance of "Omniboat" is uniquely strange. After all, it's not like the film is devoid of name talent, nor is it some dull and forgettable movie. So what happened to it, and will it ever be released? Not even the people who starred in it know for sure. One of the other people to have seen "Omniboat" is /Film writer Ben Pearson, who made sure to ask Finn Wolfhard about the film's status when interviewing him about his directing debut, "Hell of a Summer" earlier this year. Wolfhard is just as in the dark as we are about the movie, as he explained when Pearson asked if he'd heard anything about it:

"No. Literally, no. I don't know what happened with that movie. That'll be good lost media. I think I saw the short I was in, but I don't think I've ever seen the whole movie. I heard it's a crazy movie and had all these different filmmakers, obviously. I'm sure one day it'll come out."

As Wolfhard alludes to in that answer, "Omniboat" now exists in a sort of liminal space all its own: it's something which feels like it will see the light of day at some indeterminate point in the future, and yet it also feels like "good lost media," the type of film or show which becomes almost urban legend the longer it goes unseen. With the recent passing of Redford, along with the film's Sundance heritage, it becomes that much more possible that we might see "Omniboat" ride the waves anew fairly soon. Yet perhaps, like "Big Bug Man," the movie might be better served as a cinematic cryptid, something which will become a legend all its own. No matter what, the final film role of Robert Redford deserves some sort of legendary status.