An Amazing Movie

Rating: 10/10 (19 November 2008)

I saw this movie in the theaters back in 1994. When it was released on VHS I obtained that version. I've watched the movie about once every two years since then. This is an amazing movie in any number of ways. One big way it amazes me, is the way which it, as a simple and guileless little story, like a feather wafting in the breeze, nevertheless evokes raw rank hatred and eyeball-bulging, forehead vein-popping, spittle-spewing vitriol from liberals and so-called "intellectuals" who are absolutely certain that, like a guided missile, it is seeking them out, intentionally, personally, to insult them with rightwing thoughts and ideas, and by a nitwit character no less. Hahahaha. As if.
So let's first thing pop that little pea right out of the shooter. Let's dispense with the bilge of this movie being some kind of sub rosa rightwing plot. Puh-leeeze. This is a mainstream Hollywood production. Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks, Sally Field, and Robin Wright Penn are all known Hollywood lefties, liberal devotees who would take the pipe long before allowing themselves to be associated with or be used by anything akin a rightwing movie, let alone be openly and voluntarily involved in making one. Bottom line, this is not a political movie. This is not a movie which is making any kind of political or social statements in any respect. People who think it is doing any of that are just working way too hard over-thinking it all. Period. It's odd because it's really not all that complicated of a thing to understand. Which leads directly to another amazing thing about this movie: it is amazing the way the simple little message the movie is actually sending just sails right over so many people's heads. Amazingly they just don't get it, and based on the comments here they still aren't getting it 14 years later and counting. So if you fall into that category let me help you out.
What is the message of Forrest Gump? Stripped to its purest essence, this movie is about loyalty and devotion, particularly to the ones in our lives we love and care about. These are the human values being reinforced. Loyalty. Devotion. Forrest Gump embodies loyalty and devotion. To his mama. To his good best buddy Bubba. To the love of his life, Jenny. To his leader, Lt. Dan. And in the end to Forrest Jr. One by one and all together Forrest sticks by and takes care of his family, friends, and loved ones. This is the thread running through the entire story. This is what carries Forrest to all of the remarkable places he goes along the way.
The use of a mentally challenged man as the leading man is a conceit, used to illustrate the point that loyalty and devotion are the most important things in life, trumping everything else. It drives home the point that nothing else really matters anywhere near as much. Indeed, it drives it home with blunt force. Maybe it drives it home too hard for such a simple little point. Maybe this is where the movie's detractors get themselves side-tracked.
There are a number of other amazing and remarkable things about this movie. The performances. The special effects. The almost poetic simplicity of the story and the way it is told. See it for all this and more, but please, don't over-think it.