Review: News of the World | 2 out of 4 Stars | PG-13
By Kyle Osborne
It’s being billed as Tom Hanks’ first Western, but “News of the World” is simply a road movie. Like Midnight Run or Rain Man or Planes, Trains, and Automobiles…except not so great. The slow-pokey journey features some glorious scenery and a sweet moment here and there, but it’s one long, long haul.
Set 5 years after the Civil War, Tom Hanks plays former Confederate Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a lonely, haunted man who travels from town to town, reading recent newspaper articles to rapt audiences who pay ten cents each to be regaled by the kindly raconteur.
One day Hanks’ character unexpectedly meets a blonde haired girl who looks like so many of the German settlers of Texas’s early days, but she had been kidnapped by Kiowa Native Americans, and has no memory of anything other than being a true pale face (sorry) whose Kiowa parents are now as dead as her original German parents are. Now, as “an orphan twice over,” Johanna’s only hope of being reunited with blood relatives lies squarely in the great big heart of Hanks.
And so, the odd couple set off in a rickety wagon across the unforgiving plains of Texas. And did I mention that Johanna doesn’t speak English or German and Hanks doesn’t speak her language, either? Womp, womp.
Yes, we have seen many versions of this movie before. We’ve even seen this version of a Tom Hanks performance before. Some folks are comforted by the familiarity, even the predictability of story, and if that is you (Hi, Mom!), you may enjoy the slow ride and slowly developing relationship between the laid back gentleman and the fiery ten-year old.
Others may only be jolted awake by a few perilous episodes along the way, including a deliciously evil bad guy who wants to “buy” Johanna, and has not taken “no” for an answer. It ends up as a decent set piece on a rocky mound. Shots will be fired, but the family-friendly tone escapes unharmed. Another bloated bad guy seems very much like a current person in the news, but you’ll be the judge.
This is one of those movies where you imagine the film that could have been made – a fascinating, gritty story about how many disparate groups in Reconstruction era Texas were still a long way from peaceful living. A story about a man who saw so many horrific things during the war that adjusting to the cruelty of the time and place he now finds himself in is its own story. Life was so hard that an evening spent listening to a guy read the newspaper was a pleasurable night out.
I’m sorry to report that the same can’t be said for “News of the World.”
Rated PG-13, About 2 hours. Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures
