Forrest gump ( review )

FORREST GUMP ( REVIEW )



During the one month in order to use my free time in efficient way, I watch this film. On July 6, 1994, Paramount unveiled Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump in theaters. The Tom Hanks satire would go on to win six Oscars at the 67th Academy Awards, including best picture. The Hollywood Reporter's original review is below: Forrest Gump is not stupid. Although his IQ is 75, he sees the world far clearer than most. Through his decent, childlike eyes, we too see things in a less confused and muddled way. In this cheerfully straight-arrow moral tale, Tom Hanks stars as the "wise fool" Forrest Gump and delivers yet another Oscar-level performance. Paramount will win sensational box office with this Robert Zemeckis-directed film. Raised in the 50s in rural Alabama by a single mother (Sally Field), Forrest, being ,,different," must fend for himself, struggling against not only perceived expectations but boyhood bullies. He unwittingly finds that he's blessed with a talent — he can run like the wind, which wins him a football scholarship to play for Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama. And there's no stopping him after that. An uplifting saga about one young boy's earnest and good-natured attempts to overcome his disabilities, Forrest Gump is also a cheeky social satire of the past 40 years of U.S. social-political history. Eric Roth's screenplay, adapted from Winston Groom's novel, nimbly intertwines Forrest's life with the seminal social events and players of the past several decades. Unassuming Forrest, with his golly-gee enthusiasm and inbred decency, encounters the likes of Elvis, George Wallace, presidents Kennedy through Nixon, Dick Cavett, John Lennon and Abbie Hoffman as he graduates from 'Bama, fights in Vietnam, competes in international ping-pong, founds a shrimping company, engages in philanthropy and jogs cross-country. Contrasting Forrest's unassuming innocence with the upheavals and rancor of the times, the film is a wisely goofy commentary on the stupidity of smartness. While Forrest's foray's into the dens of the big and powerful are cheekily amusing, the film ambles along over a deeper, darker layer: Forrest's love for his childhood girlfriend, Jenny (Robin Wright). An abused child, Jenny's life path is a desperate wander to find solid ground. She falls prey to every social movement and fad of the times; unlike Forrest, whose unwavering strength and sense of right and wrong protect him from being caught up in social slides, Jenny's genuflections reflect her lack of firm values and inner confidence. To some extent, one could argue that Jenny symbolizes most of us. If any criticism might be leveled at the film, it is that its most heart-wrenching moments are too adeptly skirted, but, then again, that's in keeping with Forrest's strength. Highest praise to Zemeckis, who has reached a higher maturity plane with his gracefully, technically eloquent direction. Carrying his torso in an erect, straight-arched manner, Hanks' body language is all-telling. With each strange or perplexing situation, Hanks erupts with the smallest twitch or turn, signaling Forrest's deep-seated disapproval or, in special other cases, his gleeful, thankful wonderment. Mykelti Williamson, as Forrest's simple-minded G.I. buddy, is also outstanding, while Gary Sinise is sympathetic as Forrest's bitter platoon leader, legless after the Vietnam War. — Duane Byrge, originally published on June 29, 1994. I've never met anyone like Forrest Gump in a movie before, and for that matter I've never seen a movie quite like "Forrest Gump." Any attempt to describe him will risk making the movie seem more conventional than it is, but let me try. It's a comedy, I guess. Or maybe a drama. Or a dream. The screenplay by Eric Roth has the complexity of modern fiction, not the formulas of modern movies. Its hero, played by Tom Hanks, is a thoroughly decent man with an IQ of 75, who manages between the 1950s and the 1980s to become involved in every major event in American history. And he survives them all with only honesty and niceness as his shields. And yet this is not a heartwarming story about a mentally retarded man. That cubbyhole is much too small and limiting for Forrest Gump. The movie is more of a meditation on our times, as seen through the eyes of a man who lacks cynicism and takes things for exactly what they are. Watch him carefully and you will understand why some people are criticized for being "too clever by half." Forrest is clever by just exactly enough. Tom Hanks may be the only actor who could have played the role. I can't think of anyone else as Gump, after seeing how Hanks makes him into a person so dignified, so straight-ahead. The performance is a breathtaking balancing act between comedy and sadness, in a story rich in big laughs and quiet truths.
Forrest is born to an Alabama boardinghouse owner (Sally Field) who tries to correct his posture by making him wear braces, but who never criticizes his mind. When Forrest is called ,,stupid," his mother tells him, ,,Stupid is as stupid does," and Forrest turns out to be incapable of doing anything less than profound. Also, when the braces finally fall from his legs, it turns out he can run like the wind. That's how he gets a college football scholarship, in a life story that eventually becomes a running gag about his good luck. Gump the football hero becomes Gump the Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam, and then Gump the Ping-Pong champion, Gump the shrimp boat captain, Gump the millionaire stockholder (he gets shares in a new ,,fruit company" named Apple Computer), and Gump the man who runs across America and then retraces his steps. It could be argued that with his IQ of 75 Forrest does not quite understand everything that happens to him. Not so. He understands everything he needs to know, and the rest, the movie suggests, is just surplus. He even understands everything that's important about love, although Jenny, the girl he falls in love with in grade school and never falls out of love with, tells him, "Forrest, you don't know what love is." She is a stripper by that time. The movie is ingenious in taking Forrest on his tour of recent American history. The director, Robert Zemeckis, is experienced with the magic that special effects can do (his credits include the ,,Back To The Future" movies and ,,Who Framed Roger Rabbit"), and here he uses computerized visual legerdemain to place Gump in historic situations with actual people. Forrest stands next to the schoolhouse door with George Wallace, he teaches Elvis how to swivel his hips, he visits the White House three times, he's on the Dick Cavett show with John Lennon, and in a sequence that will have you rubbing your eyes with its realism, he addresses a Vietnam-era peace rally on the Mall in Washington. Special effects are also used in creating the character 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, as when LBJ examines the wound in what Forrest describes as ,,my butt-ox." And the biggest laugh in the movie comes after Nixon inquires where Forrest is staying in Washington, and then recommends the Watergate. (That's not the laugh, just the setup.) As Forrest's life becomes a guided tour 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 out, tunes in, and turns on. She's into psychedelics and flower power, antiwar rallies and love-ins, drugs and needles. Eventually it becomes clear that between them Forrest and Jenny have covered all of the landmarks of our recent cultural history, and the accommodation they arrive at in the end is like a dream of reconciliation for our society. What a magical movie.

Prepared by : Inomova Shakhnoza
Group : 213