News of the World
“If there is an actor better equipped than Tom Hanks to stand up in front of a crowd desperate for hope, truth, and decency, he doesn’t come to mind,” said Justin Chang in the Los Angeles Times. In this “imperfect but sensitive” neo-Western, the two-time Oscar winner plays a Civil War vet who works as a traveling newsreader in 1870s Texas, reciting articles to small-town audiences. “Now as ever,” Hanks exhibits “a rare gift for making simple decency look compelling,” but his Jefferson Kyle Kidd soon has a more pointed mission. Encountering an abandoned girl—a white 10-year-old who’d been captured and raised by the Kiowa— Kidd decides to deliver her to immigrant relatives 400 miles away. Unfortunately, said A.A. Dowd in AVClub.com, Hanks’ upstanding persona limits the potential surprises: “The film feels almost too built around his signature nobility to ever gain much in the way of actual drama.” Still, the dynamic between Kidd and his young charge makes this Paul Greengrass picture “very much worth seeing,” said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. The girl speaks only Kiowa, but as played by Helena Zengel, she conveys volumes through her silences. “You know a movie has you hooked when you catch yourself wondering, with sudden intensity, what in the wide world she must be thinking.” (In select theaters and on demand) PG-13 require directorial flourishes, said Devika Girish in The New York Times. But beyond its “frenzied” editing“and fancy CGI effects, Bryan Fogel’s new film does “drive home the pathos of Khashoggi’s story” while offering fresh insight into how the former royal insider became an assassination target. Even the embellishments “impress acutely upon us the injustice of a world where money and geopolitics supersede human rights.” (In select theaters and $20 on demand) PG-13
The Reason I Jump
The experience of autism is so individualized that it “can never truly be shared,” said David Ehrlich in IndieWire.com. But this “lovely” documentary, based on a memoir written by a nonspeaking 13-year-old, does a remarkable job of helping viewers grasp how neurodivergent people experience the world. Instead of merely telling the memoirist’s story, it tells several. It can’t fully explain how its subjects think, but encourages us to try. ($12 on demand) Not rated
The Marksman
Liam Neeson is giving his “reluctant man of action” persona “quite a pandemic workout,” said AVClub.com. Here he plays an ex-Marine sharpshooter who’s struggling to hold on to his ranch near the Mexico border when he inadvertently becomes the guardian of a boy chased by a drug cartel. (In theaters only) PG-13