The last time Tom Hanks worked with director Paul Greengrass was on the intense Somali pirate thriller CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. Their newest film is NEWS OF THE WORLD, a Western, in which Hanks plays a former Civil War Captain (five years after the war ended) who now travels to various town reading the news stories from various regions to local town folk. The movie is actually based on the novel by Paulette Jiles, and co-stars newcomer Helena Zengel (who plays Johanna, the second lead of the film). Check out the trailer below and tell us your thoughts in the comments.
Five years after the end of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (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.
In the plains of Texas, he crosses paths with Johanna (Helena Zengel, System Crasher), 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.