A thoroughly nasty piece of work

Rating: 1/10 (5 November 2005)

This film clearly falls into the Love/Hate category. I think it's one where either you like the principle idea of optimism or you detest the idea that life is simply handed to you and all you have to do is throw it away.
I for one hated this film. Not for the acting, which I didn't rate very highly, although Sinise put in a good performance in my view, I'm even a fan of Hanks other work but didn't particularly enjoy his performance here. No, I hated this film for its message which I found to be so central and pervasive that I couldn't enjoy any of the rest of the film's supposed qualities. The message I got from this film was that it makes no difference what you do in life, no matter how hard you work, how talented you are or how much you believe, if you just let life go past you, obey and be good then you will be a huge success. It's a belief I see more and more and one which I find abhorrent.
Strangely enough it seems that this belief is becoming true. Make an average film with average acting and you too can have a huge box office success and win multiple Oscars.
Perhaps this is then a truly brilliant and ironic piece of work. I still hated it.