Forrest Gump: Love it or Hate it? (1 Viewer)

[Zack Lee]

clearly written and directed to be controversial and divisive.

 

[Optimus Prime]

In the 30 years since becoming a box-office phenomenon, en route to winning six Oscars, including best picture, director, actor and adapted screenplay, Forrest Gump has settled into the culture as a significant achievement, canonized by its induction into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry – and, to a slightly lesser extent, by the few dozen Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurants worldwide.

Other best picture nominees may be more beloved, like The Shawshank Redemption, or influential, like Pulp Fiction, but none that captured the public imagination on quite the same scale.

And yet it’s still worth asking, after all this time: What is the deal with this movie? What is it actually trying to say?

These are not rhetorical questions, at least not entirely. Adapted loosely from Winston Groom’s picaresque novel about an unlikely savant’s era-spanning brushes with history, Forrest Gump has become of the great Rorschach blots of American cinema, a film so studiously apolitical that it reflect whatever ideology you wish to project on it. The National Review has cited it multiple times as one of the best conservative movies of all time, but that interpretation mostly feels like filling in a vacuum that doesn’t exist in, say, an Oliver Stone movie, where the point of view is much firmer. It’s a weird case where you search haplessly for a reason why it was made yet it resonates deeply with millions of people. What a long, strange trip it has been.

The most straightforward explanation for Forrest Gump’s success is how readily audiences lock into the sweet, innocent, off-kilter charms of Gump himself, an affable guy from rural Alabama who was named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, but possesses a milder temperament than his namesake.

In Groom’s novel, Forrest is more on-the-spectrum, with a low IQ and a massive frame that makes him seem oafish, but who likes Mark Twain, is a natural at chess, and can do enough math in his head to be recruited by Nasa.

Eric Roth’s screenplay turns him more into a lobotomized Zelig, drifting through a consequential stretch of American history with decency and pure intentions, but with the processing speed of a vintage Texas Instruments TI-99.……

Forrest Gump at 30: a wildly popular movie that remains as light as a feather

Tom Hanks is an affecting lead but the popularity of Robert Zemeckis’s much-loved Oscar-winner is still a curious mystery

www.theguardian.com

 

[El Caliente]

I always viewed Forrest Gump as Billie Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire” in movie form.

Also, the books were crazier than the movie (from what I’ve been told).

2 stars out of 5.

 

[sfidc3]

Hated that it was set in AL and he played for Bama....other than that it was entertaining and it probably will go down as one of the most watched and talked about movies of all time.....and Tom Hanks is great, but to me, the best actor in that movie was Gary Sinise.....

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Without reading thru the last 15 yrs of pages in this thread, my guess is i probably had some pretty sizzling-hot takes about how overrated Forrest Gump is as a movie.. however, i think I’ve come all the way back around now and i actually think it’s a fine film… and as much as i love Billy Joel- Forrest Gump is a way better movie than We Didn’t Start the Fire is a song….

 

[Madmarsha]

I couldn't answer the poll. But I guess I'd lean towards used to like it, am now meh about it because I know I've seen it in the past a LOT but don't find a need to re-watch it again currently. It's given some frequently used quotes ("You ain't got no legs, Lt. Dan". "Run, Forrest, Run!" "Life is like a box of chocolates") so it's got THAT going for it. And now whenever I hear Freebyrd, I think about Jenny inexplicably not falling off the railing of the balcony in 3" platform shoes. But I also think about Sally Field, who is only 10 years older than Tom Hanks, playing his mom. I just never thought about this popular movie in terms of is it a GREAT film or not.

 

[Hubig]

Jenny is the greatest movie villain of all time.

 

[BigOdin504]

Simple minded imbecile gets all the breaks.
Radical who questions authority gets all the bad.
Sounds like a propaganda film to me.

It’s got some feel good parts.
2.5 out of 5 for me.

 

[cpg]

Forrest Gump is Boomer self-aggrandizement on film -- patting themselves on the back for accomplishing very little.

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Jenny is the greatest movie villain of all time.

Nope, not when you consider what she went thru as a child, sexual abuse at the hands of her father etc.. totally understandable that she would act out and get strung out on drugs as an adult, and be a less-than-stellar friend to Forrest .

 

[Madmarsha]

Nope, not when you consider what she went thru as a child, sexual abuse at the hands of her father etc.. totally understandable that she would act out and get strung out on drugs as an adult, and be a less-than-stellar friend to Forrest .

Now, Princess Buttercup? THAT was a movie villain.

 

[St. Widge]

Forrest Gump is a very average movie that touched an area of nostalgia and fantasy for the Boomer generation. And that would be all fine and good had it not robbed Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction of the Oscar for Best Picture.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Simple minded imbecile gets all the breaks.
Radical who questions authority gets all the bad.
Sounds like a propaganda film to me.

or foreshadowing

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Forrest Gump is a very average movie that touched an area of nostalgia and fantasy for the Boomer generation. And that would be all fine and good had it not robbed Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction of the Oscar for Best Picture.

FG beating Shawshank i totally get; VERY few people saw Shawshank in the theaters upon it’s release or even in 1994 at all.. i think i was like most people where i first saw it in like 1996 on VHS… but agreed, no way Forrest had any business beating Pulp Fiction, that was almost criminal .

 

[sfidc3]

Jenny is the greatest movie villain of all time.

Not even close....she was out of control for much of her adult life, but her childhood certainly contributed to that....child abuse is the worst.....

Forrest Gump is a very average movie that touched an area of nostalgia and fantasy for the Boomer generation. And that would be all fine and good had it not robbed Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction of the Oscar for Best Picture.

I think it was much more than that but have to agree that Shawshank was the better movie, one of my all time favorites....Pulp Fiction was really good as well but I care much about any awards, Oscars included....