@3

                                FORREST GUMP

                               by Papa Legba

@5
Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Starring Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Robin Wright.
Certificate 12. (On General Release Nationwide.)

@1
It's easy to see why this has taken over $250 million in the US so far.  It's
the kind of picture American audiences love: touching, sentimental and with 
just a little saccharin thrown in for good measure.

Fortunately, it also has a good dose of humour to liven the proceedings.  
Combine the two, together with some of the most amazing special effects ever 
committed to film, and you have one of the best films of 1994.

The framework of the story involves Forrest Gump (Hanks), an all-American guy
with an IQ of 75 and a heart of gold, retelling his incredible life story to 
anyone who'll listen.

His story starts as a young boy, forced to wear braces on his legs, yet still
manages to teach an unknown Elvis Presley how to dance.  This, however, is 
only his first claim to fame.   He later goes on to become (unwittingly) 
involved in a televised student protest, the surprise of the All-American 
Football team, a Vietnam hero, a first-class ping-pong player and finally a 
billionaire business tycoon.

Alongside Forrest through all this, is his longtime companion Jenny (Wright),
who goes from being a vulnerable, frightened child to an angry, drug-using, 
political product of the Sixties, before coming full circle again at the 
film's sad conclusion.  Jenny eventually dies of AIDS, although the film 
never actually names the disease, which is a surprising step back for 
Hollywood after Hank's ground-breaking Philadelphia.


Thanks to the latest in SFX, he also gets to meet Presidents Kennedy, Johnson
and Nixon, and consequently helps to bring down the latter by rumbling the 
Watergate affair.  He also has the honour of appearing on a chat show with 
John Lennon, and manages to provide the inspiration for Imagine while he's at
it.

The effects themselves, produced by Industrial Light & Magic, are right at 
home in a Zemeckis film, as Death Becomes Her, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and 
even Back To The Future prove.  However, in this film they don't work 100 
percent.  They range from the convincing (the Kennedy sequence), through the 
not-quite-there (the Nixon medal ceremony) to the second-rate Lennon scene.

However, this film still has a damn fine story, an excellent script and a 
first-rate cast (Hanks' performance alone is worth the ticket price).  It's 
also the ultimate feel-good movie, which explains why it has taken America 
by storm.  It's also doing great business in the UK, and the situation is 
probably likewise all around the world.

Nobody directs entertaining family films better than Zemeckis (not even 
Spielberg), and it's fair to say this is his best film to date.  Coming from 
a die-hard Back To The Future fan, that's no mean feat.

To conclude, while this film isn't perfect, it has few flaws and is 
entertaining enough to warrant a "heartily recommended" rating from me.
@5
Papa's Five-Star Rating: * * * * *
@1
                                                                        End.