Thursday, July 1, 2010

The Great Hit Movie Forrest Gump Reviewed

By Harvey Mitchell

Forrest Gump was one of the nineties biggest success stories in cinema and it has become one of the most successful movies in Hollywood cinematic history. The movie, which was released in 1994, is based on the novel of the same name written by Winston Groom. It stars Tom Hanks, Robyn Wright Penn, Sally Field and Gary Sinise.

When the movie was released it was a huge success and ended up picking up seven Academy Awards the same year including one for Tom Hanks as best actor and earning more than $677 million. The movie gave birth to a number of movie quotes that entered the popular vernacular such as "Run Forrest Run!" and "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna get."

The storyline centers on Hanks' character Forrest Gump. Gump is from Alabama and although he has a low IQ and is considered throughout his childhood to be simple, he manages to live an entirely amazing life. The twists and turns of his life see him present at some of the sixties, seventies and early eighties most important events and meeting highly influential people from politics to pop culture.

At the opening of the movie Gump is sitting at a bus stop and gets chatting to a woman waiting there and recounts events from his extraordinary life to the incredulous woman. The first part of his fascinating journey begins when he is offered a football scholarship at the University of Alabama. From there he enlists in the U. S Army and goes to Vietnam where he becomes a war hero who is later released on medical leave.

During his convalescence from war injuries he takes up ping pong and becomes a national champion who visits Maoist China as a representative of the United States government. Later on he receives a medal of honor from the President and experiences the fringes of the sixties hippy movement.

All throughout his life Gump is enamoured of his friend Jenny who he met on his first day of school. Jenny was an abused child and ends up being a damaged adult who follows a number of self-destructive paths. Gump however, is blind to her weaknesses and they end up together. Gump also manages to become involved in setting up Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. And this becomes a multi million dollar company. He becomes very wealthy when his business partner ends up investing in a little known company called Apple.

The book and the film are both ironic, funny and poignant all at the same time. When you finish watching the movie, you are really left wondering if we are as smart as we all really think we are and if someone like Forrest Gump doesn't have it right after all.

Forrest Gump is at once entertaining and funny as well as offering a deeper story line that is filled with symbolism. The fact that it became one of the most popular and highest earning movies of the 20th century is amazing when you consider that the directorship was offered to two others who turned it down before Robert Zemekis and casting the movie was not as simple as one would imagine with roles being rejected by a number of high profile Hollywood actors.

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