Five years after the end of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks), a veteran of three wars, now moves from town to town as a non-fiction storyteller, sharing the news of presidents and queens, glorious feuds, devastating catastrophes, and gripping adventures from the far reaches of the globe. On the plains of Texas, he crosses paths with Johanna (Helena Zengel), a 10-year-old taken in by the Kiowa people six years earlier and raised as one of their own. Johan... (Full plot summary below)
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Five years after the end of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks), a veteran of three wars, now moves from town to town as a non-fiction storyteller, sharing the news of presidents and queens, glorious feuds, devastating catastrophes, and gripping adventures from the far reaches of the globe. On the plains of Texas, he crosses paths with Johanna (Helena Zengel), a 10-year-old taken in by the Kiowa people six years earlier and raised as one of their own. Johanna, hostile to a world she's never experienced, is being returned to her biological aunt and uncle against her will. Kidd agrees to deliver the child where the law says she belongs. As they travel hundreds of miles into the unforgiving wilderness, the two will face tremendous challenges of both human and natural forces as they search for a place that either can call home.
Leave your thoughts about News of the World.
| Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNews of the World works at the highest levels as a story of two lost souls who find one another, and as a crackling good, blood-spattered Western. |
| The PlaylistJason BaileyThe revelation here is Zengel, who has says little (none of it in English), yet has the presence and gravitas of a silent film actor, putting across her history and trauma primarily in her haunted eyes and loaded expressions. |
| The Film StageGlenn Heath Jr.At the center of it all is Hanks, our moral compass, our trembling hand, who has amazingly never headlined a Western in his four-decade career. Only his bearded, weary face could have brought such empathy and grace to a brutal portrait of rotting Manifest Destiny forever stuck in the mud. |
| Movie NationRoger MooreIn the hands of Tom Hanks and his “Captain Phillips” director, Paul Greengrass, this adaptation of a Paulette Jiles novel becomes a parable for these “troubled times,” a story of race and unrepentant racism, men of violence who won’t give up that violence and the power of a free press to rectify that. |
| New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriIt feels odd to see a Western in 2020 that actually dares to be a Western, especially coming from a director who for so long specialized in urgent, high-tech, ripped-from-the-headlines thrillers. But maybe that’s not so odd a combination. News of the World has the trappings of an old-fashioned epic, but it also has a restless, modern soul. |
| Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan"News” is like almost every other western. Still, it works. |
| The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyEssentially a two-hander though enlivened by incisive secondary character turns along the way, it's a drama made with tremendous feeling, an unhurried, contemplative tale peppered with nail-biting set-pieces. |
| IGNZaki HasanPaul Greengrass and Tom Hanks have given us something truly special with their latest collaboration: a film that is engaging and challenging but also just makes you feel good. |
| The Associated PressMark KennedyMany of the best scenes are silent, enhanced by a wonderfully wistful score by James Newton Howard. |
| Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpZengel is a fresh spark in an otherwise old-fashioned production, but old-fashioned here is a compliment. News of the World has no interest in subverting or updating classic Western formulas: It is content with its function as a handsomely-made studio picture, built ostensibly around Hanks but with plenty of room for its young star to make her mark. |
