Urban Thought Collective

HANCOCK (PG-13)

MAJOR PLAYERS:
Will Smith (Hitch), Charlize Theron (In the Valley of Elah), Jason Bateman (The Kingdom), producer Michael Mann (Collateral), and director Peter Berg (The Kingdom).

THE DEAL:
Will Smith is a superhero. Well, DUH. Even his story reads like something straight out of Marvel or DC Comics: West Philly kid eschews an academic career at MIT to rap his way into TV sitcom success and movie superstardom. At this very moment, Will Smith is THE most bankable movie star IN THE WORLD. And yet he looks like me (shut up, Diallo) - imagine that. So what took him so long to don the stretchy pants of superherodom? Will is as savvy about his brand as he is smart. He was just waiting for the right project on which to put his “John Hancock.”

Opening on a gun-shooting spree-cum-car chase, “Hancock” (Smith), the world’s most reckless superhero - and “notoriously shy,” antisocial, crass, uncouth drunk - apprehends the criminals by impaling their car on the Capitol Records building. Subtle. Turned off by an ungrateful, spoiled public who doesn’t appreciate his expensively destructive means of heroism, Hancock contents to hole up in his isolated trailer overlooking the sea when not chasing a skirt or a bottle.

But when he happens to rescue of Ray “the Bono of PR” Embrey (Bateman), the publicist takes on Hancock to be his greatest project yet. Figuring that “we have to make people miss you,” Ray talks Hancock into voluntarily going to jail, submitting to anger management counseling while the city goes to hell in a handbasket.

Upon his return, fitted with a shiny black uniform and a set of odd-fitting manners, Hancock faces the twin challenges of Ray’s surly wife Mary (Theron), who does not approve of her husband’s latest charity case, as well as the truth behind his amnesic past.

Treading the line of what it could’ve been with the saucy, attitudinally spot-on Ludacris song “Move Bitch,” “Hancock,” much like its lead, suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. An R-rated movie stuck in a PG-13 body (no doubt contracted as such in order to maximize Smith’s mammoth worldwide box office), Berg’s stupor-hero flick is good fun that should have been GREAT fun.

In spots, the movie is choppy, due to the extensive editing required at the behest of the MPAA Ratings Board in order to deliver something PG-13able. I bet the director’s cut DVD will be AWESOME. Call me a snob (shut it, Kevin), but I wanted better, more heroic music. Berg’s attractive, “Friday Night Lights”-style of floating handheld cameras and longish, improvised takes doesn’t always work here. My popcorn was too buttery. Okay, that’s not “Hancock”’s fault, but you get the picture. This is not a flawless movie.

But it is a fun one. Backed by a neat, conflicted script by Vy Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan, “Hancock” features a couple of nice second act twists, one of which I didn’t see coming. Hancock’s social transformation is an amusing one, particularly when thrown against typical prison culture and measures of manhood. Big Aryan-Looking Dude, are you REALLY gonna want to mess with Hancock, a guy impervious to bullets, can fly, and throw your punkass through a building?

For the most part, Berg’s direction is solid, particularly down the stretch with a somewhat un-hero-like, surprisingly dramatic ending. Alarmingly though, he bullhorns a second act twist early on with one too many lingering reaction shots on a certain character that blunts whatever surprise that’s to come. I like Berg as an emerging action director as well as an amiable and nuanced actor. But this is a somewhat disappointing, rookie director misstep for someone with several films to his credit.

The central cast is an artistically attractive one. Jason Bateman, surfing the continued career resurgence afforded him since the wonderful-but-defunct series “Arrested Development,” supplies great work again, this time as a wry, bluntly honest, slightly straight man to Hancock’s never ending cache of assholery. Theron gets short shrift in most of “Hancock”’s marketing, but hers is still a crucial role nonetheless.

What of Big Willie Style, our first global hip-hop superhero? Lending an ample dose of nihilistic self-loathing, roguish selfishness, and really bad hygiene (kudos to costume designer Louise Mingenbach and the makeup department because he looks like week-old exposed, half-cooked Spam before his reformation), Smith as John “I drink and stuff” Hancock commits to being the misunderstood outsider without a past before emerging from jail as a somewhat rehabilitated outsider - but with a purpose.

Will pulls off both sides, as noted by my therapist screening partner: “Talk about the ultimate behavior modification! If only my clients could do that in two weeks!” As with anyone who doesn’t know who they truly are, Smith’s Hancock is a tortured soul, layered beneath several epidermis of hermetic hostility, content to live a self-indulgent lifestyle of self-destruction until the Embreys come along.

However, the restraint of the rating restricts just how unlikable Hancock SHOULD be in the first act and a half. There’s plenty of “there” there to his misanthropic behavior. I just feel as if the filmmakers missed out on an opportunity to showcase more of Smith’s unmined dark side as much as his well-documented and previously received light one.

Don’t let a little soft-pedaling get in the way of a good time. “Hancock” still exploits entertaining special effects, a touch of an unconventional love story, and a welcome, heroic turn for Bateman to great effect. Will Smith’s star will continue to shine across the world, and the Overbrook-Sony joint money machine will continue to print this and every summer. While a courageous step forward in humor and character for the genre, “Hancock” and Smith are heroes - but just not quite super.

@@@ REELS
(THREE REELS)
It’s pretty hot - go give it a shot.

UTC’s resident film critic Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for The 213 Magazine, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com where his new novel I DO? is available NOW.