Why Tom Hanks?

Rating: 5/10 (14 August 2005)

This was an entertaining movie, but it would have been much nicer to see it directed by someone else, and played by an ACTUAL foreign actor. Much as Tom Hanks does an admirable job, it just irritates me to see Americans put on a generic "foreign" accent and walk funny, act funny, and just generally play an irritating twit and think that's what it means to be 'foreign'. It might go down well with the troops in Alabama, but in the rest of the world it's just offensive and to me it goes to the root of why America has a serious image problem in the world today.
Where is it written that if you are from "Krakosia" that you immediately take on some kind of a strange, "old man" gait like Hanks does in the film. Does he have hemorrhoids? Is he knocked-kneed?
And whether it's Spielberg or the writers who are responsible, the 'Commissioner' in this film is like a cartoon character. How or why could he possibly HATE Viktor so much? Not to mention all the secondary characters are like characters from Children's movies. There were moments (such as when Gupta, the Indian Janitor is telling Viktor's heroic tale) when I felt like I was watching the Goonies or ET again.
I enjoyed this film, but I probably will go check out the French version now, just because it is -irritating- when big American studios cast big American actors to play a very small, foreign character. For a foreigner, in this film Hanks' character has a remarkably American sense of humor.
Once again Spielberg falls just short of biting satire and descends into sentimental tripe.