“Forrest Gump,” the iconic film about the adventures of a man from Alabama, is not a good movie. Despite its near-universal approbation, “Forrest Gump” has aged into one of the most overrated and lackluster films ever to win the Best Picture award at the Oscars.
“Forrest Gump” won the Best Picture award from the Golden Globes and Academy Awards for 1994 and also garnered Oscar statues for Acting in Leading Role, Direction, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, and Visual Effects. Any film that garners six Academy Awards has to be in consideration for one of the best films of all time doesn’t it?
There is no denying the iconic status of this film; it is a work of cinema that many generations will see, and it does have some resilient components. Tom Hanks gave a commendable acting performance, the “life is like a box of chocolates” quote is engrained in pop culture, and it has one of the most realistic representations of the Vietnam War. But for a film that runs two hours and twenty-two minutes, there need to be more acclimations to take away than just these three instances which, by the end, become lost in the tedious attempts at collective appeasement that this film strives for.
While some audiences, including the Oscar committee, consider the story of “Forrest Gump” to be an uplifting adventure of perseverance and determination, it’s actually the pacing and overall plot that serve as the ultimate downfall for this film. The plot of this film is disarrayed, underdeveloped, and appeals to the attention span of an eight-year-old child. There is nothing of substance in regards to narrative depth, character development, or challenging content throughout this story, ultimately causing the film the jump around from one absurd storyline to the other in order to distract the viewer from seeing these fatal flaws.
No particular component of the story lasts long enough to create any depth or gravity to the overall story. The Vietnam War scene is memorable because of its accurate portrayal, but besides that one part, it is difficult to conjure up a significant emotional reaction to any event in the film because the scenes do not have the ability to resonate with the viewer in the same way that a movie like “Pulp Fiction” does.
“Pulp Fiction,” also released in 1994, has varying story arcs just like “Forrest Gump” and even has a similar run time. Unlike the Tom Hanks film, “Pulp Fiction” manages to balance its storylines evenly throughout the entirely of the film, and each scene is written with enough depth that they incite an emotional response within the audience even years after viewing. Anyone who has seen “Pulp Fiction” remembers the great interactions between Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta’s characters, Jackson’s bible monologue, and especially the dance scene between Travolta and Uma Thurman.
Everything that is wrong with “Forrest Gump” in regards to the story, is executed to perfection in “Pulp Fiction,” and again in “Four Weddings and a Funeral" and “The Shawshank Redemption.” Looking back on the films that were released in 1994, it is difficult to comprehend how a melodramatic, underwritten, and self-absorbed film like “Forrest Gump,” was considered superior to the three aforementioned films.
Many modern audience members may consider “Forrest Gump” a classic, but it certainly does not deserve the high praise that people unwittingly bestow upon it just because it happened to win a golden statue some twenty-odd years ago. New audiences go into the film expecting it to be good because of the high praise they have heard from others, fundamentally clouding their ability to observe the piece through an unbiased lens. It is devoid of any inclination to create debate amongst audience members and simply tries too hard to appease a wide range of viewers, causing it to simply coast through its run time without creating any emotional resonance.
