Movie review: News Of The World
This is not a biopic about the defunct British tabloid newspaper of the same name, but a road trip Western drama exploring the intergenerational bonding between an old man and a young girl who have both experienced loss and trauma.
A kindly Civil War veteran (Tom Hanks) who travels from town to town reading the news undertakes a perilous journey across Texas to return an orphaned German girl (Helena Zengel) taken and raised by Native Americans as an infant to her surviving relatives.
Premiering on Feb 10 on Netflix, News Of The World is essentially Logan-meets-Midnight Sky (there is even a sand storm sequence reminiscent of the Arctic windstorm from George Clooney's Netflix project) but set five years after the end of the Civil War amid the unforgiving plains of the Wild West.
But under the capable hands of writer-director Paul Greengrass, who reunites with his Captain Phillips leading man Hanks, the result is the cinematic equivalent of comfort food.
News Of The World will not grab headlines, but sometimes all we need is a simple, sentimental, good old-fashioned story.
NEWS OF THE WORLD (M18)
SCORE: 3.5/5
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