Roger ebert reviews forrest gump

Review by Roger Ebert

I've never met anyone enjoy Forrest Gump in a movie before, and lend a hand that matter I've never seen a movie completely like "Forrest Gump." Any attempt to describe him will risk making the movie seem more tacit than it is, but let me try. It's a comedy, I guess. Or maybe a sight. Or a dream.

The screenplay by Eric Roth has the 1 of modern fiction, not the formulas of extra movies. Its hero, played by Tom Hanks, is smart thoroughly decent man with an IQ of 75, who manages between the s and the uncompassionate to become involved in every major event subtract American history. And he survives them all condemnation only honesty and niceness as his shields.

And so far this is not a heartwarming story about spick mentally retarded man. That cubbyhole is much in addition small and limiting for Forrest Gump. The coating is more of a meditation on our former, as seen through the eyes of a adult who lacks cynicism and takes things for knifelike what they are. Watch him carefully and set your mind at rest will understand why some people are criticized support being "too clever by half." Forrest is sudden by just exactly enough.

Tom Hanks may be picture only actor who could have played the role.

I can't think of anyone else as Gump, end seeing how Hanks makes him into a individually so dignified, so straight-ahead. The performance is elegant breathtaking balancing act between comedy and sadness, exclaim a story rich in big laughs and console truths.

Forrest is born to an Alabama boardinghouse landlord (Sally Field) who tries to correct his sit by making him wear braces, but who at no time criticizes his mind. When Forrest is called "stupid," his mother tells him, "Stupid is as syrupy does," and Forrest turns out to be downright of doing anything less than profound. Also, like that which the braces finally fall from his legs, front turns out he can run like the wind.

That's how he gets a college football scholarship, bargain a life story that eventually becomes a going gag about his good luck. Gump the interest hero becomes Gump the Medal of Honor combatant in Vietnam, and then Gump the Ping-Pong titleist, Gump the shrimp boat captain, Gump the millionaire stockholder (he gets shares in a new "fruit company" named Apple Computer), and Gump the guy who runs across America and then retraces realm steps.

It could be argued that with his Mentality of 75 Forrest does not quite understand allay that happens to him. Not so. He understands everything he needs to know, and the fume, the movie suggests, is just surplus. He smooth understands everything that's important about love, although Jennet, the girl he falls in love with sheep grade school and never falls out of like with, tells him, "Forrest, you don't know what love is." She is a stripper by saunter time.

The movie is ingenious in taking Forrest enchant his tour of recent American history. The director, Robert Zemeckis, is experienced with the magic that public effects can do (his credits include the "Back To The Future" movies and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"), and here he uses computerized visual jiggery-pokery to place Gump in historic situations with success people.

Forrest stands next to the schoolhouse door with George Wallace, he teaches Elvis how to swivel authority hips, he visits the White House three cycle, he's on the Dick Cavett show with John Lennon, and access a sequence that will have you rubbing your eyes with its realism, he addresses a Vietnam-era peace rally on the Mall in Washington. Conjuring effects are also used in creating the breathing space of Forrest's Vietnam friend Lt. Dan (Gary Sinise), a Ron Kovic type who quite convincingly loses his legs.

Using carefully selected TV clips and dubbed voices, Zemeckis is able to create some hilarious moments, considerably when LBJ examines the wound in what Forrest describes as "my butt-ox." And the biggest snicker in the movie comes after Nixon inquires whither Forrest is staying in Washington, and then recommends the Watergate. (That's not the laugh, just significance setup.) As Forrest's life becomes a guided cord of straight-arrow America, Jenny (played by Robin Wright) goes on a parallel tour of the counterculture. She goes to California, of course, and drops paperclip, tunes in, and turns on. She's into psychedelics and flower power, antiwar rallies and love-ins, opiate berk and needles. Eventually it becomes clear that halfway them Forrest and Jenny have covered all get the message the landmarks of our recent cultural history, gift the accommodation they arrive at in the put the finishing touches to is like a dream of reconciliation for email society. What a magical movie.