Veteran British filmmaker Paul Greengrass once again demonstrates his talent in quality entertainment films. Action, adventure or war movies like three of the Bourne saga, "Captain Phillips", "United 93" or "Bloody Sunday" have passed under his hands.
In his new project he has dared with a western with a classic tone that adapts the homonymous novel written by Paulette Jiles, in which it is his first foray into the genre, like that of Tom Hanks, with whom he had already worked on Captain Phillips (2013).
The film has been slow to release, and finally Universal Pictures has decided to sell the project to Netflix, taking into account the current health situation.
The film places its history in 1870 in North Texas with the presentation of Captain Kidd, who works reading the news from the newspapers to the inhabitants of the different towns that he visits (hence the title of the project), and once he finishes doing his work in the city of Wichita Falls begins his march to another place, when he finds a black man hanged and a girl fleeing the place.
From that moment on, that young woman from the Kiowa Indian tribe named Joanna, who does not speak English, will accompany the protagonist on his tour of different parts of the country, and the captain's objective is to take the girl to her uncles' house in Castroville. , considering that Joanna's parents and brother were murdered.
The film has all the elements of the classics of the genre, which mix very well the adventure scenes with a dramatic background situation, and which is of great technical and artistic quality, where all the details are taken care of to the maximum so that the project manage to catch the fans of the genre, to which we can add the great work in the direction of Paul Greengrass and the magnificent performances of Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel.
The American actor, who did not convince me at the beginning when he succeeded with comedies, until he was awarded twice in a fair way by Hollywood academics in the 90s, has managed to make the most of different roles and that they adapt very well to their current age. This time he does it very well, in a not easy role, and he does it moving naturally despite his inexperience in westerns.
The case of Helena Zengel is curious, since we knew her for her work as a rebellious girl in the German film "System crasher (2019)", for whose role she was called by Hollywood to play this girl, who moves naturally and gives the perfect replicas of Tom Hanks. Her performance has been taken into account by the SAG (American Actors and Actresses Guild) and by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (who deliver the Golden Globes), since she has achieved nomination in both awards at the supporting actress category.
The film grows little by little in the awards season, and has many options for nomination for the Oscars in categories such as soundtrack and cinematography, without ruling it out in film, leading actor (Tom Hanks) and actress cast (Helena Zengel).
The other strengths of the project are the great work in the direction of photography of the Polish Dariusz Wolski, the excellent original music composed by James Newton Howard and the costume design of the double Oscar winner Mark Bridges. A visually appealing film that tells an engaging story, with several high-level situations that work well as action scenes (thanks in part to the direction of Paul Greengrass), although in the final part it loses interest somewhat , until we reach that great denouement that is the perfect closure to a film that I recommend to fans of the genre, but that can bore those who cannot stand the most classic Western cinema.