Hancock ‘n’ Bull

Hancock is story about a hapless homeless and amnesiac man in Los Angeles who mysteriously has superhero-like powers.

Played by rapper, turned television star, turned top dollar movie star, turned Hollywood mogul Will Smith, Hancock reluctantly stops crime while annoying the very people he is supposed to protect. Complicating his situation, Hancock has no idea who he is and faces his coldest and most unsettling fear – that he may be the last of his kind.

Smith tries and succeeds at creating an authentically tragic character who spends the majority of the movie swigging from bottles of whiskey in a pathetic attempt to escape the very reality he is charged with saving. Hancock’s self-medication and destructive behavior is so devastating that it leads the citizens of L.A. to question whether he is doing more to destroy the city than the criminals he pursues. It also makes the moviegoer question whether there is any redeeming value in his character whatsoever. Smith’s performance is nothing less than masterful. Hancock’s personality, albeit woeful, flies off the big screen and grips the audience’s conscience as well as raises their pulses to feverous levels. Throughout the movie, Smith’s performance was reminiscent of Billy Bob Thorton’s lewd portrayal in “Bad Santa.” Hancock also belches, curses, and sadistically punishes children who dare to call him an asshole.

Don’t get me wrong, Smith’s performance is no where near Oscar worthy. However, Smith has attained something that only Toby McGuire (Spider-Man 3), Bruce Wills (Unbreakable), and Christian Bale (Batman: Dark Knight) have been able to accomplish in recent superhero lore – making a story about a superhero focus on the development and evolution of the character instead of merely relying on the magnitude and awesomeness of his powers to carry the story. Undoubtedly, Smith’s ability to command the screen and capture the audience’s attention by himself was polished from his recent last man on earth performance in “I am Legend.”

Unfortunately, if you take out Smith’s performance you are left with a mediocre storyline because director Peter Berg (The Kingdom) fails to deliver a cohesive story that resonates with the audience or supplies a compelling origin story. Here, Berg’s story telling has the pace, consistency, and nuance of a six year child trying to tell his parents what happened at school. It is choppy, interspersed with boyish exaggeration, and erratic. One moment Hancock is chasing criminals, the next moment he is pining for his lost love. One moment he is connecting with his PR man’s child, the next moment you forget the child even exists. This schizophrenic behavior renders the performances by Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) and Charlize Theron (Monster) flaccid and uninteresting. For whatever reason, Berg decided not to focus on Hancock’s back-story, before his amnesia, which is truly a shame. The revelation of Hancock’s past, the key to who he is and why he was there, is summed up in a string of hurried, vague, and meaningless allusions to historical events. It puzzles me why Berg decided not to focus more on Hancock’s back story in a movie about the origin of the main character.

All-in-all, Hancock is a good summer blockbuster to see. Just keep your expectations low for the story-line and watch Will Smith do his thing on screen.

Writer:

Zuberi Williams grew up in Charles County, Maryland and is an Alumni of TCU, Fort Worth, TX. He received his JD/MBA joint degree from American University, Washington, D.C. Currently, he is a lawyer in D.C. and lives in Silver Spring, MD.