Tom Hanks

  • Nothing in Common (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) Tom Hanks did many small disposable 1980s comedies before becoming America’s favourite everyday man, and while Nothing in Common is really not one of his best-remembered ones, it does have two or three elements worth highlighting. The first is most obvious in the first half of this disjointed film, as he plays a fast-talking adman who’s got exactly the kind of life he wants: an upward career, a fast pace, a devoted crew of employees, a different woman every night, a jeep, fancy vacations, etc. Hanks is a delight, as he jokingly rampages throughout his office, negotiates horizontally with a client’s daughter, and seemingly has the world on a string. But such characters aren’t meant to stay like that in American cinema, and so the first cracks in his perfect life appear once his parents separate, his dad falls ill, he learns quite a lot about his parents’ dysfunctional relationship and his newest client gets skittery. Nothing in Common has a clear inflection point that makes it feel like two different films in one—a silly comedy at first and then (predictably) a more heartfelt film about a father/son relationship through hard times. While the increasingly serious result is not going to everyone’s liking, you can see why such a role would interest the young Hanks and how it shows, in a microcosm, the arc of his career as a whole—first as a comedian, then as a more serious actor. The problem with Nothing in Common isn’t necessarily its shift from the comic to the dramatic—it’s that once all is said and done, it feels as if everyone was enjoying themselves far more in the first half, pushing it perhaps too far into fun considering the inevitable let-down of the second half. There’s nothing subtle about the opening moments, but then the last few scenes all deal in small victories, textured arrangements and going back to the basics that the protagonist cheerfully ignored at first. That’s traditional and respectable, but unsatisfying by design. It would be easy to say that the two halves of Nothing in Common have too little in common.

  • Greyhound (2020)

    Greyhound (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Youtube Streaming, December 2021) A classic WW2 thriller gets a digital facelift in Tom Hanks’ Greyhound, a tense action-filled war movie following a supply convoy as it makes its way across the Atlantic in 1942. Hanks not only stars as the captain of a destroyer trying to keep the Nazi U-boat threat at bay, but also wrote the film — further adding to his legacy of paying homage to the military personnel of the era. Adapted from the C.S. Forester novel The Good Shepherd, the film greatly benefits from modern digital filmmaking in portraying the dangerous game between Allied destroyers (including a Canadian ship) and Nazi submarines — Digital special effects allow the camera to show fluid battle sequences that would have been impossible to visualize otherwise, and keep the audience engrossed in the ongoing suspense. Cleverly structured around the period in which the convoy cannot depend on assistance from the continents, Greyhound is a ticking clock of attacks, defence and counter-attacks. Hanks plays the captain with a familiar stoic reserve, so it’s arguably the action sequences that get most of the attention. Director Aaron Schneider keeps the focus on the thrills rather than the characters — a decision that matches well with the film’s zippy 91-minute running time. There’s a nice claustrophobia to the grey-and-blue cinematography, and Greyhound remains satisfying despite a few shortcomings.

  • Bachelor Party (1984)

    Bachelor Party (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2021) Considering Tom Hanks’ persona as America’s everyman, universally loved and respected and so on, it’s occasionally good to go back to the first phase of his film career and take a look at the kind of stuff he was starring in as a younger man. Oh, there’s plenty of broad sentimental material here — Splash, Big, The Man with One Red Shoe, Turner & Hooch, etc. —but then there’s some more interesting material in there and I’m not sure there’s anything more surprising than seeing Hanks leading a raunchy sex comedy in Bachelor Party. Not that raunchy of a sex comedy, mind you: Despite the promise of a wild sex-and-drugs-fuelled bachelor party and the ominous presence of a donkey (don’t worry), the film flirts with naughtiness more than commits to it, all the while building up a committed relationship between our baby-faced Hanks protagonist and his fiancée (Tawny Kittaen, in fine form) on the eve of their wedding. There are clichés and dumb jokes that wouldn’t pass muster today (including as hysterical a case of transphobia that could be put on film in a 1980s comedy, which is a lot) and they do harm to the film. But the rest of it is strong enough, in a somewhat conventional way that tips its hat to the classic 1980s comedy slobs-versus-snobs archetype. Still, the most interesting aspect of Bachelor Party to a twenty-first century audience may be the spectacle of Tom Hanks partying it up wildly in between strippers, donkeys, drunken Asian gentlemen and a trashed hotel suite. I’m not sure we’ll ever see something like that again in his filmography…

  • News of the World (2020)

    News of the World (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2021) Considering that News of the World is a film about a travelling newsman delivering newspaper stories to backwoods communities in the late nineteenth century, it’s inevitable that viewers would interpret much of the film through modern notions of communication networks. Tom Hanks here plays a travelling packet of information, the Internet of his days moving from town to town at a horse’s unhurried pace. His business model is simple: grab newspapers in big cities, then go to small (largely illiterate) cities and charge for an entertaining recitation of the news. But you can’t make an entire film out of that, so the plot gets in high gear once he encounters a young Native American girl and gives himself the mission to get her “home,” as nebulous a concept as that may be. The road to their destination won’t be simple, what with bandits, enemies and prejudice along the way. It’s a western with a slightly unusual angle — already an achievement—and the execution from writer-director Paul Greengrass (taking a break from frenetic subject matter and camera movements) is just good enough to keep even Western skeptics engaged. Hanks is obviously the main draw here, with a father figure performance kept on edge by some action sequences and one quasi-oneiric sequence in a sandstorm. Helena Zengel makes for an intriguing newcomer as well. News of the World is not that great of a movie, but it goes down easy despite the touches of violence. More significantly, it’s a western that resolutely anticipates the twenty-first century.

  • The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)

    The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2021) It took me too long to realize it, but The Man with One Red Shoe is very much a remake of Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire, and for all of the good we may think of Tom Hanks in the lead role as a mild-mannered man thrust into spying intrigue through no fault of his own, he’s not quite Pierre Richard. Hanks is intensely likable, but he doesn’t have Richard’s manic goofiness nor his slapstick chops. Fortunately, the American version realizes that and dials back the physical comedy in favour of reaction shots whenever Hanks’ character finds himself in situations he’s ill-equipped to handle. The mid-1980s atmosphere is almost overpowering, taking place in a Washington, DC, demimonde of spies trying to one-up each other through the use of an unwitting stooge. Contrivances naturally run high in a film of that nature, with the void left by Richard’s performance felt most acutely in the film’s very mild humour. It’s not a terrible film, but it doesn’t quite reach the level of other Hanks comedies of the era. The period atmosphere of the film is getting better as time goes by, and young Hanks is always interesting to see the more you know about his later career. As a remake, The Man with One Red Shoe is disappointing—so don’t watch it too close to the original.

  • Turner & Hooch (1989)

    Turner & Hooch (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, March 2021) Coming toward the end of Tom Hanks’ first comedy-focused period, Turner & Hooch sees him paired up with a dog, in keeping with the trend at the time. He’s a policeman in a small city longing for a more exciting life, but the best he can do at short notice is getting saddled with the dog of a murder victim. A big, rough, ugly, drooling mastiff running roughshod over his carefully-organized life and apartment. Fortunately, there’s a murder case to solve, antagonists to defeat, and a cute veterinarian (Mare Winningham) to meet. In other words, you do have a good idea of where this is going, and the film does not disappoint expectations, although the ending is tweaked for a good cry. Hanks is a good sport about it all and his persona is very much in-line with his other films of the 1980s—but there’s only so much he can do with such conventional material. Turner & Hooch is not unpleasant to watch (I remembered the opening scene from a previous viewing decades ago, for instance), but it’s not a film built for maximum comic potential if you’re not in the target audience for wacky ugly dog antics. Looking at the film’s production history, I see that there’s finally confirmation that the original director, Henry Winkler, was fired thirteen days into the production due to conflicts with Hanks (really!?!) and that’s how Roger Spottiswoode ended up credited as director. No matter the off-screen drama, that result on-screen is somewhat innocuous, and certainly more intended toward kids than the rest of the family.

  • A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

    A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, December 2020) I understand why the world makes us cynics (I’m Gen-X; while we didn’t invent cynicism, we’re pretty good at it,) but it’s not a bad idea once in a while to stop and ask ourselves if there’s another way. I had limited exposure to Fred Rogers in my youth, but discovering him as an adult may be an even bigger revelation – his incredibly earnest, vulnerable approach to the human condition is enough to make anyone wonder – is this guy for real? Is it even possible to be this uncynical, or does it hide something else? This turns out to be one of the key pieces of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a Rogers biopic that has to navigate a tricky path between describing Rogers, not falling prey to easy contrarianism and trying not to repeat the 2018 documentary Won’t You be My Neighbour? too much. Structurally, the film avoids making Rogers the protagonist, and instead follows the adventure of a journalist who thinks of himself as too cool for Rogers – only for Rogers to become the antagonist, the one breaking down the main character and rebuilding him for the better. Tom Hanks is an almost perfect fit for playing Rogers: With the weight of his filmography as a nice guy and a generally irreproachable personal life, Hanks roughly occupies a similar cultural space as Rogers. Director Marielle Heller has a few tricks up her sleeve here – presenting a film that struggles with the possibility that Roger may, in fact, exactly be what he appears to be despite an almost-childish desire to find otherwise (with a few darker sequences to shock viewers); and borrowing a few powerful moments from the documentary within a narrative structure. It’s all quite impressive: the film’s tough armour is gradually whittled away until a state of guilelessness is achieved, and the impact is quite something. Maybe the carapace we carry can be taken off from time to time.

  • The Money Pit (1986)

    The Money Pit (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2020) I remember seeing bits and pieces of The Money Pit as a kid, but seeing it now from beginning to end as a middle-aged man who has owned three houses and paid for two major renovation efforts is the kind of different perspective that I couldn’t have imagined back then. Very reminiscent of Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House, this is a comedy from Tom Hank’s younger, sillier period—Here he plays a young entertainment lawyer who must buy a house quickly to avoid homelessness and soon discovers that a slab-to-ceiling renovation is required. Beyond the wacky situations, funny dialogue and oversized characters, The Money Pit is comically distinctive in that it has many set-pieces of elaborate physical comedy as the house falls apart on its new owners, or the renovation crew comes knocking holes in the walls. Hanks is his usual comic 1980s self here, although Shelley Long gets more and more interesting as the film advances and has her become a foil for Hanks’ character’s increasingly maniacal portrayal. It’s quite a bit of fun, although my approval is somewhat tempered by having seen Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House not too long ago: The original film has a better portrayal of the universal process of buying and (re)building a house, far better dialogue and Cary Grant as a bonus. This one often skips over material that could have been interesting, stops caring about the money issue midway through, and goes too often for slapstick when it could have used a more dialogue-heavy approach. It’s still funny enough to warrant a look, although new homeowners may want to pay down a chunk of their line of credit before being retraumatized by the material here.

  • Larry Crowne (2011)

    Larry Crowne (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2020) It’s interesting that Larry Crowne came and went with nearly no lasting impact – after all, it’s a Tom Hanks movie: he produced, co-wrote, directed and starred in it, clearly making this film his by any measure. It’s not a large-scale film: it revolves around a middle-aged man struggling to find meaning to his life after becoming unemployed. He can’t find a job, can’t make his house payments, and even his SUV is too expensive to run. The natural solution is to enroll to community college, make better financial choices and start riding a scooter to school. As we know, college is an opportunity to meet new people and change your life, meaning that he gets the attention of a free-spirited student and his burnt-out public speech teacher. Subplots include him using the teaching of his economics course (led by a self-absorbed professor hilariously played by George Takei) to straighten his situation and let go of the past. Larry Crowne’s biggest assets are its considerable charm and a terrific ensemble cast led by Hanks himself (in his everyman persona) and Julia Roberts as a dangerously disillusioned teacher at the end of her rope and her marriage. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a ray of sunshine as a kind of character that could only exist in a movie, but does brighten up the entire film. Other familiar names, sometimes in very small roles, include Pam Grier, Cedric the Entertainer, Taraji P. Henson, Bryan Cranston and Rami Malek. The plot definitely has issues, and a credible argument could be made that the last thing we need is another film about a white male mid-life crisis. But Larry Crowne is almost ridiculously easy to watch – it has that immaterial “pleasure to watch” quality that simply keeps us smiling until the end. The romantic plot seems far-fetched (aren’t rebound relationships a bad thing?) and the interest that the younger characters take in the protagonist smacks of fantasy, but everyone is just so likable that it doesn’t matter much. It all amounts to a film that works preposterously well, but may not have the hook required to make a bigger impression. On a purely directorial level, Hanks meets his objectives here – there are clearly similarities with his earlier That Thing You Do! in terms of easy watchability, even though his craft may not be as apparent on a modern piece as opposed to a period one focused on music. Still, I can’t help but feel that its poor box office and general absence in film conversations means that Larry Crowne remains unfairly overlooked by everyone.

  • California Typewriter (2016)

    California Typewriter (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) Why should you watch a documentary mythologizing typewriters? Well, how about if I tell you that it features Tom Hanks at his meanest? It’s true! The noted typewriter enthusiast has cutting words for anyone who dares think that an email is a replacement for a typewritten note: “I hate getting email Thank Yous from folks. ‘Hey, we had a great time last night.’ Or, ‘Hey, I really appreciated it.’ So, really, you appreciated it so much that you took seven seconds to send me an email. Now if they take 70 seconds to type me out something on a piece of paper and send it to me, well, I’ll keep that forever. Otherwise, I’ll just delete that email!” Hanks is at ease in Doug Nichol’s California Typewriter, as the film becomes an overwhelming 103-minute-long paean to the lost romanticism of typing on paper. It’s sometimes overdone—some interviewees describe their limitations with computers with details that I can’t even make sense of. Later, the film makes parallels with Spiritism by extolling how their creative process is mysteriously changed by a machine and once again I’m left wondering that they’re thinking. (Or why the typewriter-machine is better than the computer-machine.) Oh yes, this is a feature-length portrait of a few eccentrics, selling typewriter, repurposing their pieces for art, digging into their history and getting together at conventions. All stories are meant to be uplifting—the artist getting known for his art, the repair shop picking up customers and the historian getting his hands on a coveted machine in a museum. The film does start on a strong note, with the death of a typewriter as thrown from a moving car. Now, let’s make something clear: I’m curiously sympathetic to the idea of typewriters—I learned how to type on one, I own an Underwood as objet d’art, I’m even arguably trying to recreate much of the feel of a typewriter by using a very loud mechanical keyboard even as I type this review. But there’s a limit to that affection and California Typewriter frequently went beyond it. Yet don’t let me discourage you from having a look: Sam Shepard and John Mayer show up in talking-head interviews, and there’s a great segment on a typewriter orchestra. One could even argue that of all the topics in the world ripe for a documentary, typewriters are not a bad premise at all. Just prepare yourself for exactly what California Typewriter is meant to do: make you think that typewriters are the most important thing in the world.

  • That Thing You Do! (1996)

    That Thing You Do! (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2020) I have a surprisingly soft spot for band movies—basically, anything having to do with the rise and fall of music groups. The Commitments ranks high on my list of favourite films, I unaccountably liked Bohemian Rhapsody despite knowing better and no amount of familiarity will keep me away from musical biopics. With his directorial debut That Thing You Do!, Tom Hanks goes straight for comforting familiarity in charting the unlikely path of a one-hit wonder musical band (called, knowingly enough, “The One-ders”) during the mid-1960s. The period recreation is solid, and so is the formula followed by the film: As our teenage protagonists are plucked from obscurity by a catchy up-tempo take on their song, we’re also driven across America from Pennsylvania to California. The screenwriting is deceptively straightforward, going right to the heart of the formula and never letting go. The performances are just as good as they need to be, with Tom Hanks hovering in the background as a record executive, Liv Tyler in a likable supporting role, and a longer list of cameos than is worth listing here. Musically, it helps a lot that That Thing You Do! can depend on actors with the ability to convincingly play instruments, and sports an insanely catchy tune. (In one of the film’s best touches, this one-hit wonder band almost always plays that one hit, meaning that the audience gets tired of it within the span of the film just as the audiences do in the film’s reality.) There are plenty of references here to mid-1960s pop culture—I caught some of the obvious movie-related ones, such as the wink to the “beach party” series, but there’s a lot more for those who know the period. This captivating historical recreation more than supports the rest of the film and the result is a solid hit for Hanks-the-Director, and a highly enjoyable film in its own right.

  • Punchline (1988)

    Punchline (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2019) Tom Hanks has been America’s everyman since the late 1990s, but before then he spent a decade playing highly dramatic roles and before then he spent much of the 1980s in straight-up comic films. One of the least known of them must be Punchline, a film I didn’t even know existed before it showed up on my TV schedule. Here, Hanks play a hungry young stand-up comic who meets and develops a crush on a housewife (played by Sally Field) who tries her hand at stand-up. Much of the film is meant as an examination of the lives of comics on and off the stage, pressured into making it big, reassuring family and friends that they’re still sane and trying not to crack under the pressure. It’s not a comedy in the most conventional sense of the word, although we do get to see a few comic routines along the way. (The final routine by Hanks’ character is a killer set, but amazingly enough it doesn’t seem to be transcribed anywhere on the web at the moment.)  I’ve long been fascinated by stand-up comedians, so Punchline had an extra resonance that may not find a grip on other viewers. Still, it’s not a bad movie: it may disappoint those expecting a funnier tone, but it’s quite watchable, and I suspect that some viewers may be just as amazed as I am to find an early Tom Hanks movie they didn’t know about.

  • CNN’s The Movies (2019)

    CNN’s The Movies (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July-August 2019) As someone who’s working on a book-length film history organized by decades, I had more than a passing interest in seeing how CNN would approach the topic in its flagship documentary production The Movies. Well, it turns out that they divided the topic in six 90-minute specials: Pre-1960, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000+. The decades are obviously chosen to make CNN’s target audience happy, compressing the earlier and later decades in looser groupings. I was a bit disappointed to see both the 2000s and 2010s lumped together, but that does reflect what I’ve been finding in my own attempt to categorize the decades: The 2000s were a fairly dull period in terms of cinematic evolution, whereas I suspect that the dramatic changes of the 2010s (studios focusing exclusively on spectacles, malleable digital reality, the rise of streaming) do not mesh well with the golden-hued nostalgic atmosphere that CNN aimed for. I’m less critical of the lumping of 1910–1959 together for a broadcast aimed at general audiences — I think it’s a fascinating period and that episode of the show did a really good job at pointing out the stars of the time, but I can see why most viewers wouldn’t care for more. I have more serious issues with the overall structure of the 1960s and 1970s shows — I think that the New Hollywood period and its counter-reaction were not sufficiently highlighted, but that may just be me. This being said, The Movies is not a documentary series with a strong structure: within each episode, we get 2–4 minutes segment meant to illustrate various trends and genres within that period, focus on beloved movies, or talk about specific actors. As you’d expect, almost all of the series’ material is either made of clips from the movies or talking heads footage—sometimes historical—featuring actors, directors, film critics and historians (including Drew McWeeney!) discussing the topics at hand. There is no overriding narration nor much in terms of interstitial material, further contributing to the series’ lack of structure. The series is obviously very proud of the people it managed to interview: Predictably, it often focused on superstar actors (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, etc.) and directors (Spielberg, Howard) — The actors often come across as mere big-name fans with only superficial contributions (unless they’re talking about acting, in which case they have a few interesting insights), while the directors are reliably more interesting. The critics and historians usually do the heavy work of pulling together the material into coherent mini-theses. The excerpts are chosen well and usually hit the high points of the movies that should be discussed in each decade. It amounts to a series that works as intended — I can certainly argue against some choices, but this is meant as a generalist overview of a century of film and as such is rarely boring. The total length of The Movies is roughly nine hours, and as a quick course on Hollywood movies it’s actually not too bad.

  • Splash (1984)

    Splash (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2019) I know that a lot of people remember Splash fondly—on a surface level, what’s not to love? Perennial 1980s comedy young beau Tom Hanks falling in love with a Mermaid played by Daryl Hannah: isn’t that enough to many anyone happy? There’s a strong fairy-tale component to the result (despite a few moments with heightened threats) and it’s best to approach the film as such. Unfortunately, there’s a point where Splash doesn’t have a lot to differentiate it from other fish-out-of-water comedies, with a script that seems obvious and by the numbers. Fortunately, the execution isn’t bad (this being one of Ron Howard’s first efforts as a director and arguably his first big commercial success) and you can’t really ignore the mermaid aspect that still makes Splash a memorable film. Hanks is slightly subdued compared to some of his other comedies of that time, Darryl Hannah is fine as the mermaid that named thousands of Madisons and there’s an interesting Canadian connection with supporting roles given to John Candy and Eugene Levy. Still, I have a hard time getting enthusiastic about it all—there’s not a whole lot to say: it seems as if we’ve seen everything in there a few times since then.

  • Joe versus the Volcano (1990)

    Joe versus the Volcano (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2018) Many movies are entertaining, but far fewer are life-affirming. Joe Versus the Volcano is one of them. From the memorable first few moments, as a crowd of workers trudge toward a nightmarish factory to the sounds of “Sixteen Tons”, this is a special film. Tom Hanks stars as a man who, upon learning of an incurable disease, quits his job and decides to see the world before his death. In the process, he meets a girl, finds himself on a deserted island and (as one does in those circumstances) volunteers to be a sacrifice by throwing himself in a volcano. It’s really not as grim as it sounds, though—it’s charming, optimistic, whimsical and far more expressionistic than you’d expect from a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy, fitting with the sometimes-outlandish material. Writer/director John Patrick Shanley manages to create a universe flirting with magical realism (people more familiar with his dour 2008 film Doubt will be shocked at how different it is) and keeps playing in this outlandish slightly fantastic sandbox, all the way up to having Meg Ryan play three different roles. Hanks is in full late-1980s charming young lead mode, while Ryan has seldom looked better with straight hair. While the inconclusive conclusion didn’t sit right with me the first time I saw it (this is the kind of film that deserves a full-fireworks kind of triumphant coda), I like it better a few days later. Joe Versus the Volcano is weird, wild, fun and heartening. Not only has it aged far better than many of its more realistic contemporaries, and it probably plays better today given the expansion of mainstream cinematographic grammar in the past thirty years.