Philadelphia (1993)

Cast : Tom Hanks

Denzel Washington

Director : Jonathan Demme

Genre : Drama

Rating : 7/10

Hey, believe me, it crunches my heart that I couldn’t give any higher rating to this movie. But, I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that this movie is really old and in the contemporary world, the direction that this story got, is just not good enough. The whole central theme of this movie is purely excellent, and I agree that the movie deserved the two Oscars it received, but then, even they were for Tom Hanks and the music, not for the direction or best movie, you see!!

Story revolves around a hardworking lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) who has been doing an excellent job for his firm, but even then he is fired just because he gets infected with AIDS. And given that in those times (not to mention, even today) AIDS was considered a taboo, he has to go through a lot of humiliation and a handicapped battle to prove that he too deserves as good a life as anyone else. He gets support in form of his family and a self-contradicting lawyer Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), who is a bit hesitant initially, but gives everything to it eventually. And as a result we get to see a court room drama, which is a real eye-opener of sorts.

To give due credit to Jonathan Demme, he handled the whole issue of homosexuality and the part that projects the feelings of the heart of a wronged man and those of the body of a painfully ill man, extremely well. But disappointingly, he fails to capture the real essence of the courtroom battle, which in turn is, in parts, the soul of the film. As a result you find yourself feeling incomplete (seriously, sometimes you will actually feel that the lawyer defending the firm has got better arguments than Denzel Washington). Infact, even till the final verdict was pronounced, I felt that Denzel was gonna lose the case.

I’ve got to say that Demme was really fortunate to have Hanks and Washington with him (not to forget the script, which thankfully had a life of its own, a surefire Oscar material). Anything said in Tom Hanks’ praise is simply understatement. Hollywood never had an actor better than him (he’s incomparable anyway!). He makes Beckett look so real that, at times, you want to jump inside the screen and extend your full support to him in his battle against the inhuman system. Really, you’ll feel so much for him. As for Denzel Washington, he was refreshing, I mean, he cracks the dialogues provided to him in a manner that makes his character instantly likeable. Have to tell you that there was Antonio Banderas too, he was highly underused, but I like him too much to not mention him.

A fair number of movies have been made on this subject (our very own Phir Milenge, for example), but none of them could ever be as good as this one. Maybe it’s the tag of being the first movie of this type or the unique manner in which it successfully captures the way those times were. Or probably, it’s just that it has something none of the others can ever have, Tom Hanks..!!