Larry Crowne

Bea says: Who on earth are Hollywood getting to screen-write at the moment? (I'm afraid to say the answer is...Tom Hanks). After the poor-to-average writing of Bridesmaids and Bad Teacher, comes this confused attempt at romantic comedy.

The basic plot outline: Tom Hanks plays a middle-aged divorced man who has just been made redundant from his service industry job at "U-Mart". An all round good-guy, he served his country for 20 years in the Navy (as a cook), but, crucially, has no college education. In order to improve his employment prospects, he enrols in his local community college, taking introductory courses in economics, academic writing, and speaking. Enter Julia Roberts, his burnt-out teacher of Speech 101 (or whatever it was called).

So far, so good. If it had just been left this way, and the story could have played out as set, it might have managed to be a passable, if predictable and forgettable, romantic comedy. But oh no - enter the scooter gang. Yes, that's right - scooter gang. Is it 1969 you might ask? Are The Who at the top of the charts, and are we all going to Brighton to face-off the Rockers?

Er, no. Although, confusingly, all the members of the scooter gang are dressed as if it's 1994, it actually is the present day, and some poor misinformed Hollywood writer appears to think scooter gangs still exist. Suffice to say that Hanks is befriended by a young female scooter driver - Gugu Mbatha-Raw - (he also drives one) and this is the catalyst for his life to change, as she makes him over, makes his house over and introduces him to her "wild", "free-spirited" way of life, which basically involves riding her scooter around town, and then dropping out of college. Hanks benefits enormously from this, managing in the end to pass his courses and get Julia Roberts, but it remains unclear exactly what scooter girl gets from this relationship.

Hanks, take a writing course.
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Cecil says: Yes, Bea said it all really. I thought the script had been written by a 15 year-old school boy because the plot was so thin and the characters were caricatures. And not even caricatures, in the case of the scooter gang: they were somehow a Hollywood dream of what gangs should be like: kind of clean, basically good at heart, fun-loving folk. I was surprised it was written by Hanks himself and Nia Vardalos, who wrote My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Nothing else to say, really. Better than standing in the tropical rain on a steamy afternoon in southern Florida. But you know, we saw it 48 hours ago, and I can't remember anything about it.

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