Review of News of the World (2020) by Theredsky — 15 Jan 2021

An interesting story bogged down by repetitiveness. Tom Hanks is still great as always. He always puts a lot into each of his roles that makes each of his characters stand out from one another with this one being a reluctant father figure who chooses to help those in need.

The direction by Paul Greengrass is great. I haven’t seen much of his work but I’m interested in seeing what else he can do besides this and Captain Philips. Both of which Tom Hanks starred in. Helena Zengel is good at points and weak in others so I can’t praise her performance nor can I bash it.

This has an interesting concept of a Civil War Captain who travels from town to town reading the news to people stepping outside of his comfort zone to help someone in need. I think this film did a great job at showing the unrest in 1880s Texas.

The film shows the tension between the people of Texas and the Union forces stationed there. It also does a good job at making you feel for some of the characters especially Hanks’ character. The cinematography is also great.

Greengrass does an incredible job at showing off these great landscapes with each shot feeling a little more different than the last. My big issue with this film comes down to its repetitiveness, pacing, and slow descent into boredom.

There is a cool action set piece at the beginning but after that point, the film starts to throw similar situations of peril one after the other. After a while, you start to say to yourself “Haven’t we already seen this before?” It doesn’t help that the pacing is awful at times with some scenes going on for way to long while others are cut way too short like the scene where a town is basically controlled by outlaws.

We spend so little time there and it was a very interesting scenario that is cut away from. I also take issue with the resolution of the film being not great. Without spoiling the film, we see what happens and you think that that’s it but then the movie goes on for another 25-30 minutes and it’s really boring aside from one 3 minute long scene with Hanks.

It should have ended where I thought it was gonna end. If you like Tom Hanks or Western movies then you might get something out of this but you can wait until it comes out on DVD, Blu-Ray, or rental to watch it.