FORREST GUMP
A film review by Jon A. Webb
Copyright 1994 Jon A. Webb
FORREST GUMP is a highly entertaining film, though one expects more of a message from it. Tom Hanks turns in a great performance as a mentally limited Southerner, who has a hand in practically every significant cultural event from 1960-1985.
Gump spends his life being a good person and unwittingly following the Zen precept of "Eat when you're hungry; sleep when you're tired" while waiting longingly for the love of a woman he first meets on the bus on his way to his first day of school. This takes him very far, to the White House multiple times, for example, through a number of remarkable accidents. Through remarkable special effects technology we see him meet Presidents, appear on the Dick Cavett show, and so on.
The movie is as light as a feather, to which it makes reference. It does not try to draw any lesson from Gump's experience, or really from our own vast cultural changes in the last generation. Instead, it merely affirms the Horatio Alger myth that a good heart and hard work will take you to the top, and moves on. This is not a great failing.
Tom Hanks's performance is perfectly fine. He's gone a little further here than in previous roles; he has a peculiar way of talking (each syllable carefully enunciated, with a Southern accent) to master. Perhaps Hanks's somewhat reserved performance keeps this movie from conveying a more rich message; he is a spectator at the significant events he participates in, never getting emotionally involved; even in his lifelong romance he seems to hold back a little.
The strongest thing about this film is the script; a remarkable number of memorable cultural events are changed into things that happened to Gump, just as the invention of several different cylindrical plastic objects played a major role in THE HUDSUCKER PROXY.
Gary Sinise puts in an acceptable turn as Gump's destined-for-martyrdom Lieutenant in the Vietnam War. But he doesn't submerge himself in the role the way Hanks does. The use of special effects technology in his appearance is as remarkable as it is convincing.
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