‘True Grit’ meets ‘Searchers’ in dry Tom Hanks western
Tom Hanks is the kind of actor about whom we accept the aphorism that he could read the phone book and make it sound great. Reuniting Hanks with “Captain Phillips” director Paul Greengrass, laconic Western “News of the World” tests that theory by casting the star as a news reader, a Civil War veteran who travels across Texas to deliver the nation’s headlines to small-town residents hungry for updates from afar — and the result, while gorgeous to behold, is only slightly more exciting than the phone book option might have been.
For a dime a head, crowds congregate to hear Capt. Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Hanks) recite stories culled from various broadsheets — news that ranges from Reconstruction policies to miners strikes. It’s a fascinating occupation, especially in light of where attitudes toward “the media” stand today, reflective of a time when the public didn’t take 24/7 news coverage for granted and when it wasn’t nearly so skeptical of whatever political agenda might be lurking in the publishers’ hearts.
But “News of the World” doesn’t dwell much on Capt.
Kidd’s job. Adapted by Greengrass and Luke Davies (“Lion”) from Paulette Jiles’ 2016 novel, this is a straightforward road movie more concerned with Hanks’ uncommon travel companion — call it “Captain Kidd and the Kid.” Very early in the film, Hanks’ character comes across Johanna (Helena Zengel), a young German girl, hardly 10 years old, who had been kidnapped by the Kiowa and is now due to be escorted to her only surviving kin, an aunt and uncle down in Castroville. “An orphan twice over,” Johanna doesn’t speak, doesn’t remember even the basics of her upbringing and doesn’t have any interest in traveling for days to meet these relatives.
What we have here is a cross between two classic John Wayne movies: “The Searchers” and “True Grit.” In the former, Wayne played a Civil War vet determined to rescue Natalie Wood from Comanche, only to discover that she’s experiencing a form of Stockholm syndrome, reluctant to return to white society. In the latter, the Duke embodied ornery, eye-patched U.S. marshal Rooster Cogburn, who accompanies an orphaned farm girl as she avenges her parents’ murder.
Young actor Zengel projects a wonderfully defiant attitude, though the scenery proves consistently more satisfying than what’s happening in the foreground as Capt. Kidd spouts exposition to a character who doesn’t understand English.
Things pick up during the Almay segment, inspiring a high-speed chase on horses that abruptly cuts from late night to the following day, suggesting miles and miles of pursuit. It’s one of the more impressive passages of the book as well, as Jiles describes the shrewd survivalist instincts that allow Capt. Kidd and Johanna to outwit the bandits who outnumber them.
“News of the World” may work for those who find themselves invested in the relationship between this wounded officer and his feral charge, but as the story of a man who reads the news to “anyone with 10 cents and the time to hear it,” your time and your dime might be better invested somewhere else.
MPAArating: PG-13 (thematic material, some language, disturbing images, violence) Running time: 1:58
Available: In theaters starting Dec. 25, on Netflix in early 2021.