Highly recommended: Tom Hanks is as watchable as ever and Helena Zengel is terrific as the girl in News Of The World on Netflix
News Of The World
Cert 12A, 1hr 58mins Netflix, available now
Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar
Cert 15, 1hr 47mins Most platforms, available now
Rating: 
Notwithstanding his iconic voice performance as Woody, the cowboy doll in the Toy Story films, Tom Hanks has never made a western. Nor has Paul Greengrass, come to that; less surprising given that the British director was born in Surrey.
But now the two have joined forces to put that right, and the result is very good indeed. Despite the presence of at least one excellent chase and shoot-out and some well-maintained tension (both Greengrass trademarks), News Of The World feels like a film in which Hanks had the upper creative hand.
In other words, a good man’s gotta do what a good man’s gotta do.
Tom Hanks is as watchable as ever and Helena Zengel (above, with Hanks) terrific as the girl. Highly recommended
Here that good man is Captain Jefferson Kidd, a Civil War veteran who travels from Texan town to Texan town, reading items from the newspapers to townsfolk too poor, busy or illiterate to do it for themselves.
Until one day he stumbles across a racist lynching, which has left a black cavalryman dead and a small blonde girl frightened and alone. Turns out she was kidnapped by Kiowa Native Americans, raised by them and doesn’t speak a word of English.
The dead cavalryman was supposed to be taking her to her aunt and uncle, but now someone else is clearly going to have to do it. Can’t think who that might be…
Hanks is as watchable as ever and Helena Zengel terrific as the girl. Highly recommended.
Kristen Wiig had an unexpected recent success as Diana Prince’s main adversary in Wonder Woman 1984. Now the Bridesmaids star is returning to her comic roots with Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar, which feels like a spin-off from a Saturday Night Live sketch but is, in fact, an original piece of writing by Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who co-wrote Bridesmaids together and co-star here.
It’s shrill, loud and pretty bonkers, with two recently redundant, middle-aged saleswomen arriving in the Florida resort of the title… just as an evil female megalomaniac attempts to wipe out the town with the help of radio-controlled mosquitoes.
Thankfully, it gets funnier as it gets both ruder and sillier.