Review: The Post (2017)

* * * 1/2
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks

The Post is not a movie that will surprise you, but there's pleasure to be had in a classic tale told in a classic fashion. Is it accurate to the way things actually happened? I'm sure the New York Times would have something to say about that, and in the end I'm not sure that it matters, unless you want to split hairs over whether plot or theme represent what a film is truly about. What it tells is a well crafted story, one which is engrossing and often rousing, and which has been fashioned in a way to make it as relevant to the moment that we're currently living in as possible, even as it hits all of the expected beats. It leads with its talent - which is, of course, considerable both off screen and on, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks - and lets that do most of the work. After all, how wrong could a movie with that triumvirate go? I'd say it doesn't really go wrong at all.

Review: Bridge of Spies (2015)

* * * 1/2
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks

It's easy to have ideals when they aren't being challenged; it's more difficult when you have to choose whether to hold firm to those ideals even when they could achieve an undesirable outcome, or see the integrity of those ideals reduced in order ensure a favorable outcome through manipulation. Bridge of Spies is about an idealistic man who believes so firmly in what he values that he's willing to expose himself to public ridicule to stand up for it, and is willing to go a few steps further than that, too. He's the kind of character that would have been played by Spencer Tracy or James Stewart in a different era, and could only be played in this one by Tom Hanks. As played by Hanks, he's a hero without being a moralizing one, and as directed by Steven Spielberg the film is a well crafted machine that seamlessly blends the courtroom drama with the spy thriller without making it feel like two different stories shoved together.

Review: Captain Phillips (2013)

* * * *
Director: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi

With razor sharp precision, and an absence of proselytizing, director Paul Greengrass dramatizes the politically charged events of 2009, in which four Somali pirates hijacked the American container ship Maersk Alabama, an incident brought to a close with the intervention of the Navy SEALs and the deaths of three of the pirates. Although a story like that could easily be reduced to an "Us vs. Them" type narrative, the film is a lot less interested in taking sides than it is in exploring the mechanics of the event in all its intensity. Captain Phillips is one of the most engrossing films of the year, a gripping thriller with two marvelous performances at its center. This is absolutely a must see.

Review: Cloud Atlas (2012)

* * * 1/2
Director: Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer
Starring: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Bae Doona, Ben Wishaw, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant

Cloud Atlas is a lot of things - ambitious, extravagant, messy, a mix of genres with sometimes jagged pieces that don't quite fit together - but it is never, ever boring. If audiences embrace it more than critics have, it may well develop a reputation as one of the most entertaining movies of the year. That is has some pretty fierce detractors is not surprising - the film does have its flaws - but, in the end, it is less a film than it is an experience, one you are either willing to give yourself over to or you're not. If you are, you'll certainly be rewarded.

The Best Picture Countdown #67: Forrest Gump (1994)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise

Like a modern day Candide, Forrest Gump stumbles through a life full of adventure. His is the story of a changing America, one marked by the assassination of a President, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the AIDS epidemic. And yet, while a nation is purportedly losing its innocence over an again, Forrest retains his, remaining an optimist who believes that no matter what, things will somehow work out. Is it any wonder that this movie warmed hearts to the tune of $330 million and 6 Oscars?

The story follows Forrest (Tom Hanks) from childhood to parenthood, cutting back and forth between his past and his present, where he is sitting at a bus stop relating his tale to various listeners. At school Forrest is an outcast both because of his level of intelligence (so low that he only gets into school after his mother, played by Sally Field, sleeps with the principal) and the braces he wears on his legs, but this status allows him to forge a friendship with another outcast named Jenny (played as an adult by Robin Wright). Forrest and Jenny will remain lifelong friends, though their lives will take them in different directions and they’ll have very different experiences. Forrest’s path sees him playing football at the University of Alabama, fighting in Vietnam, playing competitive ping pong, witnessing Watergate, running a shrimping company, and running from one side of the country to the other and back again.

Jenny, meanwhile, immerses herself in counterculture and floats in and out of Forrest’s orbit for years. Eventually they have a child together, though Forrest won’t know it for several years, and they marry but their happiness is short-lived. While Forrest goes through life narrowly avoiding disaster while maintaining the sweetness and optimism at his core, the people around him learn hard lessons and suffer severe consequences. Jenny, having careened through life drenching herself in drugs and sex in an attempt to repress the abuse she suffered as a child, finally gets her life together only to learn that she has AIDS. Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise), Forrest’s commanding officer from Vietnam, longs to die a glorious battlefield death but over time comes to appreciate life, though only after the loss of both legs and a period of deep depression. Forrest’s friend Bubba (Mykelti Williamson) dies in Vietnam but lives on through the shrimping company Forrest starts in both their names – a company that survives only after Hurricane Carmen wipes out all the other shrimping boats in the area. Nobody else can catch a break because Forrest is in possession of the world’s supply of luck.

A film like Forrest Gump lives and dies on the strength of its leading performance. In this respect it is very fortunate to have an actor like Hanks as its protagonist because he can play a character like this without making him sickeningly precious. Forrest is a simple man on whom the complexities of many events are lost, but that doesn’t mean that he is a character entirely without depth. Hanks brings dimension to the role, particularly in his scenes with Wright, and makes Forrest more than just a blank slate who experiences, but has no real reaction, to history. Wright – who, rather incredibly, did not receive a Best Supporting Actress nomination – is similarly excellent. Unlike Forrest, Jenny’s shortcomings are not viewed as heroic and she has a more pronounced arc as a character, evolving from chaos into stability. Jenny is no saint, but Wright plays her as if she has the patience of one and the wounded and flawed Jenny (not to mention Lieutenant Dan) makes for a nice balance against the almost angelic Forrest.

At the time of its release Forrest Gump was much lauded for its visual effects and even with all the advances made in that area over the last 16 years, the effects still hold up very well. Director Robert Zemeckis is no stranger to working with special effects, having helmed the Back to the Future films as well as Who Framed Roger Rabbit prior to this one, and he’s very good at creating harmony between the story and the effects, incorporating the technology into the story rather than letting the story be defined by the technology. I really dislike the message of Forrest Gump - that if you keep your head down, don’t question things, and do as you’re told, you’ll be fine whereas if you challenge the system in any way you’ll be punished – but on the whole I must admit that it is a very well-made film in a technical sense. It’s not in the same class as Pulp Fiction or The Shawshank Redemption, two of the films it beat for Best Picture, but it is a film of sound construction and execution, even if thematically it does elevate pandering to an art form.

Review: Road to Perdition (2002)

* * *
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Tom Hanks, Paul Newman

So beautiful and yet so lacking. Road to Perdition is a handsome and stately film, but one that never really seems to come alive. At times it feels reminiscent of The Godfather films, but while Coppola’s masterful saga brought the audience in, Sam Mendes’ film seems determined to keep us out. We’re meant to stand back from this film and admire it, rather than become absorbed in it and live it. I do admire parts of Road to Perdition, but ultimately never felt very invested in it.

To boil it down to its most basic elements, the film is about fathers and sons and isolation. The fathers and sons theme is obvious and often overtly addressed. The theme of isolation is more obliquely alluded to through the film’s mis en scene and one line from Mike Sullivan (Tom Hanks). “This isn’t our home anymore,” he informs his son, Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin), “it’s just an empty building.” This line is specifically referring to the murder of Sullivan’s wife and younger son, but it applies to scenes throughout the film, as characters are constantly situated in the middle of a great emptiness. The indoor sets seem vast and cavernous; the outdoor sets seem impossibly spacious. The art direction provides us with an indication of the unspoken things the characters are feeling, but it also underscores the basic problem with the film, which is that it is ultimately quite hollow. There doesn’t seem to be anything at the core of this story; it’s all surface.

The film is seen largely through the eyes of Michael Jr., who spends the first 12 or so years of his life emotionally distanced from his father, but gets to know him over the course of about six weeks in the worst possible circumstances. Curious about what it is, exactly, that his father does for John Rooney (Paul Newman), Michael sneaks into the back of his father’s car to see for himself and witnesses a murder. Rooney’s son, Connor (Daniel Craig), who instigated the act, decides that Michael can’t be trusted not to talk and takes it on himself to eliminate the threat, which results in the deaths of Michael’s mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and younger brother, but not Michael himself. There is a great moment when Michael approaches his house and sees Connor standing in the window and the film switches to Connor’s perspective and we see that he’s only looking at his own reflection. Later we learn that he doesn’t even realize that he’s killed the wrong son.

Mike and Michael go on the run, robbing banks of mob money and bonding in the process. Michael feels that his father always favored his younger brother, but this isn’t so. Mike simply saw a lot of himself in Michael and it worried him. In a similar vein, Mike is like a son to John, who took him in as a boy, gave him a means to support his family, and treats that family as if it were his own. John sees a lot of himself in Mike and has a warmer relationship with him than he does with his biological son, who he sees as a bungler and a disappointment. Connor is essentially an overgrown child who pouts his way through most of the story and is determined to make everyone else pay for his own mistakes. However, when it comes down to it and Mike gets proof that Connor has been stealing from his father, blood proves to be thicker than water. It has all the elements of Greek tragedy, save and except for the happy (well, happy-ish) ending.

Hanks is obviously playing against type here, though as killers go Mike is a fairly nice one; he always looks very sorry about what it is that he has to do. It is not an entirely successful performance; the only times when he seems really at ease in the role is in scenes with Hoechlin as the relationship between father and son begins to thaw. To be fair, I think this is less a problem with Hanks than it is with the fact that characters feel very locked into the turnings of the plot. The only actor who truly gets around this is Newman, whose two final exchanges with Hanks are electrifying.

To be clear, there’s nothing about Road to Perdition that I think is particularly “bad,” exactly, it’s just that it feels very stiff and very formal. It can’t be denied that the film has moments of brilliance and is at times wholly engrossing, but there’s a lot of affectation at play in the way that it’s constructed. If the film never relaxes, how can the audience?