Tom Hanks Has Lost His Fastball
On the last episode of LCB, we decided to throw a couple hot takes out into the ether. One of mine, which I truly believe, is that Tom Hanks has lost his fastball. Just lemme break some of these movies down.
Obviously, Hanks had about as untouchable a decade as possible.
So when you go through these movies, there is one big commonality. Most of them are great in large part due to a killer performance from Hanks (not really counting the Toy Story movies). And almost all of them are really challenging roles (especially one of them..). Now lets look at his next decade.
There are a few really good movies at the top of this list so let's review them with one question in mind: Which movies are good BECAUSE of Hanks?
Catch Me If You Can - Great movie. Arguably Spielbergs best of the last two decades. Is it good because Tom Hanks crushed the role of the FBI agent? Absolutely not. He gives MAYBE the 4th best performance in the movie.
Cast Away - YES! In the clip, I noted that this movie was the cutoff point. Absolutely incredible performance in the last good movie from Robert Zemeckis.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - Also Yes. In the ep, I noted that this is the lone exception.
Captain Phillips - This is the next closest one to breaking through. The scene where he actually gets rescued is some pretty damn good acting.
Road to Perdition - No. This is a really great and under-appreciated movie but Hanks isn't what makes the movie great. He's upstaged by Newman, Craig and Law. Plus the movie is mostly made great by Sam Mendes being one of the best artists in all of the movie world.
To me, this is the end of the great movies. After that, there are some solid movies that are not made better by a Hanks performance(Charlie Wilson's War, Greyhound, Bridge of Spies) and some that are made significantly worse by him (ELVIS). Not to mention the absolute garbage at the bottom of this list….
I'm sure Hanks still has some killer performances left in him without a doubt. He's just gotta find the right project.