Review: News Of The World

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Paul Greengrass' "News of the World" is a period piece/western of an old fashioned sensibility, although the timeliness of its release doesn't go without notice. It's an often visually gorgeous picture with the type of breathtaking vistas one might recall seeing in old John Ford movies.

In the film, Tom Hanks plays Capt. Kidd, an aging Civil War veteran from Texas whose job it is to deliver the news to audiences who pay a minor fee for him to read the events taking place around the nation. It's not a lucrative gig, but Kidd seems to like being on the lonely road by himself. Mention is made of a wife, but it's not until late in the film that we get the rundown on their situation.

After having delivered the news in a Texas town, he comes across a Black man hanged on a tree on the side of the road and discovers a young girl of German origin, but who primarily speaks Kiowa after having spent much of her life living with Native Americans, who the hanged man was escorting back to her remaining family.

Hanks tries to offload the girl - Johanna (Helena Zengel) - on several people, but when that proves fruitless, he becomes resolved to returning her to some distant relatives on the other side of Texas. "News of the World" is a road trip movie, of sorts, but with more peril than usual. 

And it's a good one. Aside from the stunning views and the solid performances of its two leads, there's a timeliness to the proceedings, especially when Hanks attempts to tell a bitter old confederate that the Civil War is over and if peace is ever going to come, now is as good a time as any. Considering the events of this past week in the U.S. Capitol, America could only be at the beginning of such a rift in its nation's denizens for the second time.

Since the film is somewhat of a western, there are some conflicts - a sleazy group of bandits attempts to purchase Johanna from Kidd, but he refuses, leading to them taking more aggressive measures. A well-shot shootout in the desert commences.

After that, the captain and Johanna arrive in a horrific town run by a corrupt man named Farley (Thomas Francis Murphy), whose cronies have the local exploited workers - they skin buffalos - living in fear. When Farley deems Kidd's outside tales of the rest of the country and world as "fake news" and attempts to force him to read from a local paper overseen by Farley, which reads more like a cult initiation pamphlet, conflict arises. Sound familiar?

But mostly, "News of the World" is an old fashioned western drama that is likely to inspire comments about how "they don't make them like that anymore." It has elements of "The Searchers" - although Hanks's character is more noble than John Wayne's was - and other classic westerns, while feeling strangely of-the-moment. It's a good movie and one that provided a surprising element of comfort at a particularly distressing time.