Viewed in
2010
Formats
HD TV
Premise
Tom Hanks stars as a rich New Yorker caught in a political firestorm when he runs over a poor black kid.
Liked
The lyrical dialogue.
Hated
Director Brian De Palma's distracting camerawork, casting choice of Bruce Willis as the reporter.
Thoughts
Not as bad as I've been told.
There were at times that it was more fun to listen to than to watch, including great speeches and witty word choices. I thought the plot was pretty interesting, and the cultural, racial, class, ethics clashes fueling the media/political frenzy. It was fun in a pulpy way to watch these sleazy people crawling all over each other to obtain their glory.
The cast was quite interesting, with Morgan Freeman, F. Murray Abraham, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattral, super-young Kirsten Dunst, (oh, that guy!) Richard Belzer, and Shia LaBeouf's dad from the Transformers movies. And Geraldo Rivera as a reporter.
I recall Tom Hanks getting all sorts of negative backlash for taking such a "despicable" role as the spoiled WASP. Watching it twenty years later, Hanks' character as a cheating husband/shrewd businessman was totally tame. Granted this was his first foray into drama, but his casting was not the main failure of this movie. I think the backlash was simply blown out of proportion.
There were many flaws, the main offense was director Brian De Palma's insistence on jamming his style down the audience's throats. The first scene was an impressive, though pointless, elaborate one-take shot of Bruce Willis attending his book debut party. After that, it was like a non-stop parade of trick shots with dolly's, cranes, extreme closeups, and whatnot. It was so distracting.
While I did not see a problem with Hanks attempting a flawed character role, I do think he was slightly miscast. His drama acting chops were not there yet. He would have been fantastic if they made this movie ten years later. Willis' casting, on the other hand, was incredibly poor. Never for a moment did I believe him as a down-and-out alcoholic sleazeball journalist.
I have not read the Tom Wolfe's novel, but it did not seem to translate well to film. I could tell by the monologues. Individually, they were poetic, vibrant speeches. However, each of those scenes put the movie's pace into a screeching halt. Such wonderful diatribes and rants work great in novel form, but not usually for a motion picture.
After reading Ebert's review, he also pointed out the novel's difficulty to translate to film. He pointed out the novel's sly sense of humor and portrayal of each character's internal struggles, and there was very little of that noticed by me when watching.
It was ambitious, and I appreciate the effort, but just not meant to be.
What I would change
Recast Bruce Willis with someone who looked more weary.
