A nice fairy tale but too long

Rating: Null/10 (29 June 2004)

As long as you keep telling yourself this movie is a fairy tale and fight the urge to poke holes in the plot you should be able to enjoy this one. I thought it would have been a better film if it were cut down by at least 15 to 20 minutes however. One plot line which could have been compressed was the romance between Hanks and Zeta-Jones.
The directing was good but not great. Spielberg couldn't seem to decide if this was a drama, comedy, romance or fantasy tale. Certainly real life is a mixture of all, but films that try to blend all those qualities tend to get confused.
As for the acting, Tom Hanks does a very solid job and was as completely believable as the story would allow. He is an amazing performer. Everytime I see him I can't help think of "Bosom Buddies" and "Bachelor Party" but in just a few minutes he always makes me forget about those roles and he becomes someone else. I predict Stanley Tucci will get nominated for either a Golden Globe or Oscar, maybe both. Not only was his character the best one in this film but his portrayal was excellent. You want to believe he's evil but just when you are convinced he does something which makes you think there's a nice guy hiding in there somewhere.
The one place where I think the writer and director went completely wrong was the beginning where the officers are trying to explain to Victor about his situation. It's obvious he doesn't understand English and yet the scenes where they keep talking to him and asking him questions goes on and on. I wanted to yell at the screen, "He doesn't understand you, get an interpreter you idiots." I know it's a fairy tale, but come on, there was NOBODY within 30 minutes of JFK who could speak his language? I found it irritating but at least they moved on and fixed the language problem later by having him self-teach.