News of the World is not a typical western, even as it clings to several aspects of the genre that are perhaps inescapable and mostly necessary. The old cowboy-ish type bound in some way to a younger woman or girl is practically a trope on its own, going back to John Wayne. However, that isn’t to say that this new film isn’t accomplished or even different, as it does a lot that separates it and remains undeniably watchable despite its somewhat parable-esque vision.
Tom Hanks is Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a former Confederate soldier who now travels about in the Texas region reading selected articles from newspapers to small congregations for ten cents a head. He’s good at it and has a flair for the dramatics that helps keep those listening engaged. One afternoon while on the road, he comes upon an overturned wagon, clearly attacked, and dismounts to investigate. He finds a black man lynched in a nearby tree and then a young girl (Helena Zengel) who at first runs from him but is soon rescued. She is a blonde child about ten or eleven years old dressed in the Native American clothing of the Kiowa tribe.
Instructed by a patrolling Union Army officer to take her to a nearby checkpoint, Kidd does but finds that red tape and time are against him, eventually deciding it’s up to him to take her to her nearest kin, something he’d discovered in a ledger found in the wagon. Her name is Johanna and her German relatives live a fair bit away, requiring a long ride, one in which they will meet more than a few challenges and naturally, a meaningful relationship where one saves the other.
Director Paul Greengrass is perhaps best known for his action flicks, most notably several of the Jason Bourne films. He also worked with Hanks prior in 2013’s Captain Phillips. He’s not the first name maybe one might think of to helm a western but he takes hold of the genre reigns with steady hands, delivering a purposefully paced tale of redemption and recovery with plenty of smart encounters and action, a terrific score from James Newton Howard and a plausible way to wrap it all up in a happy ending. It’s not a seismic shift in filmmaking, nor should it be, but with Hanks in the lead accompanied by a wide-eyed charmer at his side, this is a fun, often gripping and emotional film that deserves adding to your watch now list.
As mentioned, there are a few key setpieces that find their place in this very well, including the Kidd’s discovery of the wagon, a journey to Johanna’s family’s fate, and a crowd-turning moment when Kidd reads a different newspaper. However, I really like how Greengrass stages and executes a tense situation where everything changes in the relationship between Kidd and Johanna. It goes like this:
Kidd is in the dusty town of Dallas, reading the news as he does to a spirited crowd. In the shadows lurks a man who spies Johanna backstage peeking through the curtains at the speaking Kidd. We get a feeling something is not right. Does he know her? Afterward, the man, a former Confederate soldier named Almay (Michael Covino) approaches Kidd and Johanna on a dark street, introducing himself and two of his comrades. While Kid tries to escort the girl and himself from the conversation, Almay walks alongside, talking about the futility of their war efforts and the hardship he and his men now face. Sensing Almay is after something, Kidd abruptly asks what he wants. By no surprise, it is the girl, though as he says its, we understand why and what is implied. It’s deeply unnerving.
Kidd refuses, naturally, but Almay and his men are undeterred, offering larger amounts of money to take her, further implying that Kidd himself must surely be taking advantage of the child out alone on the road. This prompts the older Kidd to shove Almay and a slight scuffle ensues before Union ‘Blues’ arrive and break it apart. Kidd produces papers that prove his intention for Johanna while Alamy and his men are detained. Kidd knows that this is only a temporary holdover until he comes after him and the girl, so he quickly readies their wagon and bolts out of town. He’s not wrong. Minutes later, once the authorities release him, Almay and his two followers are in pursuit, hungry for what they believe they deserve.
The late night turns to early morning as Kidd whips his horses to top speed, racing for the hillside and cover while not far behind, Almay closes. They head for some rocky bluffs and the cover of boulders and sagebrush, though eventually, they are forced to stop and make a stand. Kidd is armed only with a pistol and a birdshot shotgun, which he knows is not enough. He grabs both and, under fire from the man trying to flank him, abandons the cart and takes the girl into the labyrinth of stone and rock ahead of them. There, with the high ground theirs, he rains down his bullets while watching the men draw closer, listening to Almay shout invitations to join them instead of fighting.
Kidd, not distracted, cuts the number from three to two when one of his pistol shots lands true. This infuriates Almay, who stages a rush while Kidd begins to feel his efforts will be in vain, encouraging Johanna to work her way back to the horses and run, to save herself. She tries to get him to use the shotgun, but he tells hers, rightly, the shot is useless, only for birds. But she has an idea. She appears to run away, taking Kidd’s advice, but instead, returns to the wagon and snatches a tin full of surprises, bringing it back to Kidd, who is trying to stall Almay with a potential compromise.
When Johanna returns to Kidd, he’s at first frustrated she didn’t understand his orders, looking at the tin full of ten cent coins and telling her that they don’t want their money. But then she demonstrates what the money is really for and suddenly, we’re in a whole new ballgame … er, gunfight.
I won’t spoil where this ultimately goes, and actually, the fight itself isn’t the thing that’s great about this bit of action, the only one in the film really. What it’s about is the slice of important storytelling underneath, one made out of circumstance and communication in a moment of life or death. It’s about this image right here:
As Kidd and Johanna reach the top of the bluff, seemingly cornered and Kidd already wounded in the head, firing what he has at men far younger, it is right here where the girl understands. Until now, she has been frightened and unsure about everything, her life brief but filled with turbulence and uncertainty, her parents slaughtered, she taken and raised by those that did it, then taken again, her escort lynched, and now on her way to a family she knows nothing about by a man who she doesn’t know she can trust. Not anymore.
In an instant, as she watches Kidd put his own life in front of hers, protecting her for reasons she can’t possibly grasp, she recognizes all she needs to in realizing that this man, despite where she’s from and where she’s going, is all she has. But more importantly, that he is willing, at this moment, to save her life, to give up all he has just for her. That means everything. And she says it with this one look. And it’s both heartbreaking and uplifting because this is the moment when Johanna is all in, when she herself will offer the same to him.
The ‘money shot’ in movies is a term that typically defines the most expensive in the film, the one that producers throw cash at for visual effects, stunts, or action, believing it one audiences will like best (There are other descriptions for the term in another type of filmmaking, but I’ll let that be something you discover on your own). Either way, with News of the World, the expression takes on a whole new meaning, even as it remains connected to the original. It’s clever and I like especially the way Greengrass puts this all together, building upon something in a newspaper reading to a chaotic standoff in the hills where it’s kill or be killed. Watch it carefully in how it balances the tension with the relationship between Kidd and Johanna. It’s a powerful sequence.
New of the World is not really a complex story, but it is effective, mostly because of how well Hanks and newcomer Zengel bond, the girl speaking mostly only in Kiowa-Tanoan and a little German, leaving her at a purposeful distance. This is helpful in understanding the struggle Kidd and Johanna endure, trying to teach each other what they need and want. This aspect makes it less about the typical conflicts one might find in a story like this and more on the power of action. That’s not more clear than this moment in the hills where a twice orphan child saves the life of a man trying to do the same for her.