Patman

Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts reunite onscreen for a small, quaint little film, which was light and fluffy, and went down like comfort food.

Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks' character), high-achieving employee at UMart, has hit the ceiling for career advancement due to his lack of college education, and a college degree, and is unceremoniously let go. In order to make a change, Larry goes back to college, and there he makes friends, learns from his professors, and finds a spark between himself and Prof. Tainot (Julia Roberts' character), who is in a crumbling marriage (hubby played by Bryan Cranston).

Tom Hanks directed, and co-wrote (with Nia Vardalos) this film, and it's a throwback to character-driven movies where characters are all but down and out, and find a way back to the business of living with unexpected help from literally new blood/people in his life. The movie's tone is quite suited for its story, and paced very well. The film does ask the audience to buy into some of the premises to make the story work, and it's hit-or-miss at times as the supporting characters are somewhat broadly drawn and not fully realized. I have to say that I did not recognize Wilmer Valderrama until the 2nd or 3rd time I saw him in the movie.

But overall, not a bad way to spend an afternoon matinee viewing, especially since Hanks and Roberts still have good onscreen chemistry.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

TGM

is Tom Hanks' character supposed to be retarded in this? because from the trailers he certainly acts it.

yoshimi

I have an allergic reaction to Julia Roberts so I will have to pass.

Dan

I asked my wife if this movie was about a guy going to the race track and falling in love. She was not amused.

Dr Mabuse

35% on RT with ~150 reviews in.

I'm in no hurry to see this.

Supermallet

Such a shame, because Hanks has been doing some hilarious stuff lately.

Case in point:

<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dPLWKBWkn3s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Dr Mabuse

Hanks was tweeting from the set every day while making the film like a year ago, announcing the cast as they were hired, showing script reads around the table, set and cast shots while filming, what they were shooting, etc. I was interested back then.

The reviews have been pretty much uniformly bad. It is a bummer.

Supermallet

Yeah, I follow Hanks. One of the few guys in Hollywood who has very few pretensions.

Numanoid

The reviews aren't bad, they're scathing. No surprise that Patman enjoyed it.

PopcornTreeCt

I like the idea of a middle aged man getting fired and having to go back to college. But this is as much as I like about it from seeing the trailers. Tom Hanks is fine but I would've cast just about anyone other than Julia Roberts. Also, making community college full of losers has become such a huge stereotype in Hollywood. At least "Community" does not come off as mean spirited.

Lastly, the stuff with the moped is so contrived. Tom Hanks is an old man. It worked with Zach Braff and Natalie Portman but this just looks pathetic.

Anyway, that's all I got from the trailer and TV spots. I think it had potential.

mwbmis

I would have been far more likely to go see it if he had cast Meg Ryan.

RichC2

What you're really saying is this would be better if it were about Jeff Winger.

PopcornTreeCt

This x100

Groucho

I feel bad for Hanks, because you can tell he really liked making this movie and is behind it 100%. Kind of hard to keep that up in wake of the bad reviews.

tellor

Casting Meg Ryan probably would have interested a good number of persons who enjoyed their three previous films together.