Smith to the Rescue in 'Hancock'

by Brett Parker

He drinks. He sleeps on benches. He curses. He lives in a trailer park. He has several lawsuits pending against him. He dresses like the Big Lebowski. His name is John Hancock and he’s a superhero. Along with all these other things, he can fly, deflect bullets, and hurl heavy objects. This doesn’t sound like a typical superhero, does it? That’s precisely what makes Hancock so interesting. We’ve seen countless movies about people who discover they have superpowers and find great purpose in using them to help people. Here’s a movie where a guy discovers he has superpowers and finds helping people isn’t all what its cracked up to be.

From reading this description, it’s not hard to see the comic potential in this premise. We can easily imagine Judd Apatow turning this into a goofball vehicle with Seth Rogan flying around skyscrapers. Yet Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom) decides to get his Michael Mann on once again and bring out the dramatic potential in this comedic premise. Here he is helped by none other than Will Smith, the highly-liked movie stud who convincingly plays the highly-despised super bum. I don’t know if this was the best way to bring Hancock to the big screen, but it’s certainly very effective as it rolls along. That is until a surprise plot twist reveals itself in the third act. To be sure, it’s a very compelling and creative twist, yet it’s too complicated and rushed to work properly.

We first see John Hancock passed out on a park bench with two empty bottles of Bourbon lying nearby. A little kid wakes him to announce that a carload of bank robbers are involved in a high-speed chase with police. As Hancock groggily flies to the rescue, we can see why he’s so despised by the public: he wrecks highway signs, crashes cars, and does considerable damage to the Capital Records building by placing the robber’s car right on top of it. We learn that this is a pattern in Hancock’s crime fighting career: he has a reckless attitude that causes massive property damage and huge headaches for the people around him. It doesn’t help his reputation that he hurls profanity and insults at concerned citizens (WOMAN: “I can smell that liquor on your breath!” HANCOCK: “Cause I’ve been drinkin’, b---h!”).

One day, Hancock rescues a businessman from being hit by an oncoming train (wrecking the entire train line in the process). This businessman turns out to be a PR man named Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) who finds a strange sympathy for the misunderstood and disgruntled superhero. Ray decides to pay Hancock back by giving him a PR makeover, turning him into an adored and proper superhero ala Superman. Part of Ray’s strategy is to put Hancock in jail for all his property damage so the public can miss him. While in jail, Ray visits to teach him manners, give him a new suit, and help him to realize the depth of his calling. Hancock goes along with his plan and things do indeed look up for the reluctant hero, until secrets from Hancock’s past are revealed by Mary Embrey (Charlize Theron), Ray’s wife, which brings everything to a head.

Hancock is a movie that glimpses what a great superhero dramedy would look like without ever becoming one itself. It’s funny, dramatic, and deep, but we truly wish it was way more funny, dramatic, and deep. We never feel the film is completely at ease with all of its different tones. Like Hancock himself, the film can be sharply funny one minute and deeply sad the next. The film has an undeniable edge in its execution and I applaud the filmmakers for not making apologies for Hancock’s behavior. I only wish the gags were more drop dead hilarious and the dramatic payoffs more shattering.

Hancock demonstrates once again that Will Smith is a true movie star whose very presence can elevate a film. It seems risky to have one of the nicest celebrities on the planet play one of the most cynical and hardened superheroes to ever grace the silver screen, but Smith fully immerses himself into the role and hits all the right notes. His star image serves the role well, for it helps us to find sympathy for this disillusioned and depressed man. Sure, he’s funny and entertaining in his super exploits, yet it’s the sadness in his eyes that makes our hearts follow him every step of the way. There’s a small yet important scene where members of a prison anger management group encourage Hancock to talk a little about himself. “I’m John…and I drink and stuff” is all he says, yet the way the prisoners react and the look Hancock shoots them speaks oceans about the character’s defensiveness and conflict with humans. Smith is able to find sad complexities within the role that feels a lot more effective than having Hancock be a buffoonish goofball.

Of course the film’s direction changes dramatically when Mary reveals to Hancock big secrets about his past. Hancock suffers from amnesia. All he knows is that he woke up in a hospital bed 80 years ago in Miami and knows nothing about what happened before that night (I found a small amusement in the story of how he got his name). Mary happens to know everything that happened to him before that night. Everything she knows and how she knows it is one of the wildest plot developments we could’ve dreamed up for this film and I’m still kind of hung up on whether or not it works right for this material. I will try not to reveal too much, only to say it’s a worthy and interesting way to explain Hancock’s story, yet it doesn’t seem entirely thought through or explained very well. We find ourselves asking more questions than Hancock is, when it should be the other way around. At first, I realized this twist gives Hancock a very important choice to make, but before he has any chance to make it, a noisy action development takes place that diminishes any credibility this twist could possibly have (If any of this sounds confusing, it will all be cleared up once you finally see the film. Or maybe it won’t…that’s my point!).

Despite all the confusion and tonal shifts, Hancock is still worth checking out. Its worth seeing Smith’s thoughtful and hilarious performance. Its worth seeing Berg try to stage a superhero comedy like his mentor, Michael Mann (who has a nice cameo in a boardroom scene). It’s worth seeing Charlize Theron having something a thousand times cooler to do than just being an ordinary housewife. It’s worth hearing the wonderful musical score by John Powell that wonderfully reflects the intimate sadness of the Hancock character. It’s worth seeing the talented character actor Eddie Marsan (Miami Vice, The New World) play Hancock’s quirky nemesis. And when all is said and done, its worth knowing that even superheroes can feel lonely and depressed sometimes.