Directed by:
Paul GreengrassCinematography:
Dariusz WolskiComposer:
James Newton HowardCast:
Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel, Neil Sandilands, Chukwudi Iwuji, Thomas Francis Murphy, Fred Hechinger, Michael Angelo Covino, Ray McKinnon, Mare Winningham (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
A Civil War veteran who travels from town to town reading the news undertakes a perilous journey across Texas to deliver an orphaned girl to a new home. (Netflix)
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Reviews (12)
Tom Hanks is as reliable as ever, but News of the World is easily the most boring film Paul Greengrass has directed. It feels way more sterile and far less personal than any of his other work. For such an intriguing premise, I found myself struggling to stay awake, especially in the second half. It's basically the epitome of a "Netflix standard."
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Paul went out of his comfort zone into the prairie, where life is a circle, and you have to remember that in order to move on. A simple but beautifully constructed story, told with fluid camera strokes, that you've heard a hundred times before, but that the Hanks-Zengel duo will want to hear again and again. The film is a quiet commentary on America's brokenness and the need for kindness and acceptance of difference. It may not have any dizzying depth, but it's certainly Greengrass' most personal, intimate and moving work, and its simple goodness made me believe at times that the world isn't messed up. Hats off and I love it.
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A Greengrass film that doesn’t feel it was directed by him. A slow, deliberate and down-to-earth western where not much happens or is said. The main idea is appealing, the interaction between the two main characters is decent, but there is no sensation. A more restrained and focused version of the post-apocalyptic The Postman with Costner wanting it all and we know how that turned out.
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I certainly didn’t expect a slow western about people from Paul Greengrass. The dynamic directing with the shaky camera, so typical for his work, is gone. Hanks’ Captain Kidd spends his time riding from city to city, reading his newspaper to the folks there, taking an orphan girl to her surviving family in Texas that he came across during his travels. There is precisely one action scene in this movie and it works excellently, even though there aren’t many bullets, if you disregard the horse bolting, nothing dramatic happens. But the power of this movie lies in the girl’s final dialog with a friend from school and in the little scenes when the girl sings to herself when grooming the horse. A very unusual western which, while not coming up with anything new, certainly doesn’t offend.
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This tranquil western road movie may not have a substantial dramatic plot, but it does have a humanistic heart. Simply Hanks. Its aim is to again show the slightly different corners and characters of the old American West and its code of justice and hardships in a more realistic way than Costner’s The Postman :-). But Greegrasse’s touch isn’t very apparent in it. Did she really direct it? James N. Howard’s return to the genre is nice, but due to the film’s minimalist approach, we can’t fully enjoy it until the closing credits.
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