RUTHERFORD ON FILM: "Hancock"
Depressed, Destructive Superhero Soars with Laughter, Little Real Empathy
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Entertainment Editor
He rips up the streets, smashes holes in the upper stories of high rises, and, occasionally, tosses vehicles upside down. Who is he? Just your average, everyday, drunken, rejected superhero who thinks wearing a costume is for wooses.
Will Smith steps into the boots of the bitter, amnesia stricken immortal, named John Hancock. He does good; but the insurance liability from his rescues hit ultra millions. For him, F.Y.I. equals flying while intoxicated. He’s done maxed out on second chances and faces about eight years in the slammer from collateral damage.
You’re visually entrenched from the opening freeway shootout in which Hancock successfully assists the outnumbered law enforcement of Los Angeles but carelessly brings down bridged interchanges in the process. Reacting angrily to certain forms of name calling, he plucks the bad guys car impaled on the Capitol Record spiral and later cockily deflates a bully with a little skydiving Hancock style.
Facing the consequences of falling from a lofty perch, Will Smith nonchalantly brings dark feelings and a touch of every day human issues to the premise that more relies upon destructive hero smashing up the street while saving a person in peril messy.
Sharing the tale with him, a luckless P.R. pitchman (Jason Bateman) expresses gratitude for Hancock saving his vehicle (and himself) from a railroad mishap. Of course, when the virtually invulnerable hero stopped the train, the engine and all the car left the tracks and Bateman had to climb out of his inverted vehicle which landed on top of an elderly woman’s car.
This kind, loving man invites Hancock home, where his young son immediately stares in awe and his wife (Charlize Theron) seems fearful despite Hancock’s fetish for devouring her spaghetti as if at a county fair competition.
Upon walking a block from the cinema, a dangling metaphor rattled around my head. Did I miss it? Will you? Although super-heroes with leaping and flying powers exists only in the world of special effects, their super star counterparts do walk the planet. Like the high expectations for “Hancock,” they are not supposed to mess up. Thrown into role model status by the cheers after a victory or the applause as credits roll, actors and athletes must perform more than in front of a camera or on the field. They lose their privacy to “fans” with entertainment and sports journalists spiraling them into legends, not ordinary people.
You’ll likely miss the allusions amidst the destruction, but once the screen returns to white consider how closely “Hancock” parallels to the paparazzi snapping another episode of the celebrity circus . Paris, Brittany, Robert Junior all contribute a little to the persona Smith endows into Hancock.
Hyperbolically slapping a celeb publicity machine or not, “Hancock” has clout but sheds no tears. In other words, Smith does not lay upon you the hurt, depression or humiliation. Sequences cut away at the one-liner before the emotions jell. Just like our ‘hi, how are you better, say fine’ socially correct response.
I’d like to see less whooshing into the atmosphere and more evocative solemn moments so you leave the cinema having a stretched face from all the cool laughs and yet have genuine nearly shed spontaneous tear. There’s a few opportunities, but the foreshadowing keeps the water valves from loosening.
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