What Is the Story About?
Finch, an engineer, who is living in a post-apocalyptic world, is dying. He creates a robot to protect his precious dog against the elements in this harsh new world. However, disaster strikes, with a super storm seeming to head in the direction of Finch’s bunker. What will Finch do now? How will the robot learn to take care of his dog?
Performances?
‘Finch’ is basically a one-man onscreen performance by Tom Hanks with another actor, Caleb Landry Jones, supporting Hanks with his voice. Tom Hanks is brilliant as always, but this role seems a little too generic for him. The actor works well with what he is given and Caleb does decently well with what the script asks of him. The younger actor is also low-key funny as well.
Analysis
This is how the story of ‘Finch’ goes – we follow Finch Weinberg, an engineer, who is trying to live out the rest of his days in a self-made in a post-apocalyptic world. When he finds out that he is dying, he creates a robot to take care of his dog, Good Year, after he passes away. However, due to a super storm coming their way, Finch, Good Year and the robot are forced to leave and they head towards San Francisco, to visit the Golden Gate Bridge. Finch starts to teach the robot about a few things to take care of the dog and the bot gets a name – “Jeff”. After a series of unfortunate events, Finch, however, passes away before they could reach their final destination. Jeff and Good Year eventually reach the bridge and the film ends with Jeff trying to find some survivors – especially after Finch told him not to. The end.
This, supposed to be a one-hour-short film is a two hour-semi-snoozefest. A good portion of the film is quite boring, even during the exciting bits – with the only thing remotely interesting being the interactions between Finch, Jeff and Good Year. And when a dog’s interaction with his owner/friend seems to be more interesting than a post-apocalyptic world; you know that something is up with the film (technically not always, but hopefully you get the point). And talking about the post-apocalyptic world – there is a lot about the apocalypse, we do not know about, even after watching the entire film. Sure, we can google and have a better understanding about solar flares; but usually a movie gives us a clearer picture. In this case, the movie is very reluctant to reveal what actually happened to cause apocalyptic solar flares – possibly because it might not have made sense. Maybe.
Similar to another Tom Hanks feature film from the year 2000, ‘Cast Away’, the actor plays a desperate man who is doing his best to survive. Finch is a man filled with regret and he wishes he had taken the time to do things more for himself and that is something very relatable and similar to Chuck, the character from the previously mentioned film. Sure, ‘Finch’ talks a little bit about a few important things about patience, surviving and will to live – but everything is so far and in between that eventually you let yourself be dragged and wait for Tom Hanks to finally die onscreen.
The cinematography, score and direction is good. The editing could have been better, if the film hadn’t been too predictable by the mid-point of the film. One thing we didn’t expect was the film being a literal one-man show. That came out of nowhere – probably the most surprising thing about this movie.
Overall, Finch is an apocalyptic feature film where the most interesting parts are the interactions between a man, a dog and two robots. The film is an okay one-time watch that requires a lot of patience. Tom Hanks is decent and Caleb Landry Jones works with what he is given.
Other Artists?
There are no other artists in this film besides the two aforementioned actors. Good Year the dog is played by Seamus, a rescue dog. And he is cute.
Music and Other Departments?
As mentioned earlier, the cinematography, score and direction are good. The script is too long and dragged on. The scriptwriter could easily have shaved 20-30 mins from the main story and still given us a better overall plot.
Highlights?
Tom Hanks
Drawbacks?
The Pacing
The Predictability
Did I Enjoy It?
It was meh
Will You Recommend It?
Watch it if you have the time and like Tom Hanks. Otherwise skip
Finch Movie Review by Binged Bureau
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