Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)

Since the day Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) was announced, I became eagerly excited to watch it. It had Tom Hanks - my favourite actor - and that alone was enough. But there was more...

Sandra Bullock, with her "market quote" bigger than ever, after her Oscar winning performance in The Blind Side (2009), was another major attraction. Here, we had two leads with the "golden statue" in their CV. 

Add to the mix a supporting cast with the likes of Viola Davis, John Goodman, Jeffrey Wright and Max von Sydow, a veteran that seems to improve his brilliance in every film he takes part on.

We could just have leaved it at that, but this is just the cast...

Stephen Daldry, renown English director took helm of the project based in the best-selling book (with the same name as its movie adaptation) with Scott Rudin backing him up, with the producer role. Two men with great background in terms of cinema success, working together in what it seemed to be a moving and powerful film. The trailer also left that impression...

To my big surprise, it didn't took me long to realize it was going to be a struggle to go through little more than two hours. The reason: Thomas Horn.

I couldn't see eye to eye with the young actor, who the story revolved around (well, his character, but you get the idea). Everything seemed forced... his dialogues, his body language, his over-dramatic scenes and even his voice-over narrative. But if you exclude that, everything almost seemed good...

Enjoyed Tom Hanks in his little time on-screen, saw the qualities that made Miss Bullock an Academy award winning actress and Max von Sydow, the best performance of the film, justifying entirely his nomination for Best Secondary Actor.

So you may wonder... "How come you didn't enjoy the film, when the only thing you disliked was the kid's performance?". 

Well... If you take into consideration that 85% (if not more) of the action taken in the movie has Thomas Horn in the centre of attention, than it might make it clear to you. 

I'm probably being very harsh - after all, this is his début on-screen and he's still quite young - but I can't ignore or deny that his role was a total downer. I even wanted to think it was the character's fault and there was nothing any child actor could to, under any circumstances. 

That would be a lie!

There is some to blame on who wrote the script, however, there would be some salvage to Oskar Schell if the casting was different.

Having said this, I would still encourage you to see it as other people's perception is a lot different than mine. Thomas Horn got a lot of compliments over his performance and this feature was nominated for Best Motion Picture of The Year!

Be it as it may, this is my take on it! It's not great, but not bad. Having good moments and very average ones, it might worth your while, especially because of the efforts of the ever so brilliant, Mr. von Sydow.