USA TODAY International Edition
Hanks is tall in the saddle in ‘ News of the World’
Tom Hanks is America’s Dad in the present day and he makes for a pretty good father figure in the Old West, too.
Reteaming with his “Captain Phillips” director Paul Greengrass, Hanks slings the news more than a gun in the Western drama “News of the World,” set in Reconstruction- era Texas. The Oscar winner is cast in the film ( eeeE; rated PG- 13; now in theaters), based on the 2016 Paulette Jiles novel, as a former Confederate captain on a Homeric odyssey to take a young girl home, though genre tropes at times rob the film of its timely narrative punch.
Five years after the end of the Civil War, Jefferson Kyle Kidd ( Hanks) travels from town to town reading newspaper articles, charging 10 cents a pop to people crowding in to hear him tell stories from across the country and the world. Imagine Anderson Cooper circa 1870 with a great beard and Hanks’ blend of warmth and humor.
While passing through Wichita Falls, Kidd discovers an upturned carriage and its lynched Black driver, a reminder that dark aspects of the South still infected Texas at the time. Near the scene, Kidd finds fierce 10- year- old orphaned girl Johanna ( Helena Zengel), who had been taken from her home six years before by the Kiowa people and raised as one of them.
When authorities won’t take her, Kidd decides he’ll escort Johanna to her aunt and uncle in southern Texas. The two travel hundreds of miles on a wide- open and sometimes dangerous path through the American southwest, running afoul of a villainous Confederate soldier ( Michael Angelo Covino) and the evil boss ( Thomas Francis Murphy) of a region thriving on racism and propaganda that amounts to 19thcentury fake news.
Greengrass captures stunning landscapes for Kidd and Johanna to navigate and it’s a nice scenic backdrop for the key relationship that blossoms in “News of the World.” ( It also is interesting to see such “metropolises” as Dallas and San Antonio in that period.) The pair are reluctant travel partners at first – Kidd’s wary of the kid, and distrusting Johanna isn’t exactly chatty, not even speaking English when she does talk – but the palpable chemistry between Hanks and Zengel helps the odd friendship to blossom on screen. Hanks exudes the vibe of a steady grownup in a crisis and Zengel holds her own with a Hollywood icon by imbuing her character with a wild- child manner that ultimately cracks to show the innocence underneath.
It does seem to be the season of Hollywood war horses teamed with fresh- faced youngsters: George Clooney’s “The Midnight Sky” throws Clooney and 8- year- old Caoilinn Springall together for a bonding session at the end of the world.
Hanks and Zengel offer a similar dynamic though it’s a more immersive shared narrative, as the military widower and the confused youngster both are searching for a home, having been on their own for years.
“News of the World” isn’t as good a “dad” movie as Hanks’ seafaring adventure “Greyhound” this year. Still, as Greengrass’ nomadic storyteller, the naturally folksy Hanks fits the wild Western setting.