News Of The World Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

2. The Timely Social Commentary

Given their historical settings, westerns aren't typically thought of as a teeming well for social commentary, but News of the World is no typical western.

Kidd's job throughout the film is to travel from town to town and have the local citizens pay him to read them the news, which serves as a none-too-subtle metaphor for the current era of "Fake News" and an increasingly impenetrable, untrustworthy array of news sources.

This is literalised even further during a subplot where Kidd visits Erath County and finds the local propagandist, Mr. Farley (Thomas Francis Murphy), who insists that he read only the racist, biased newspaper he himself printed.

Some may find the parallels a little too jarring or immersion-breaking for their own good, though depicting Hanks as the unflappable purveyor of truth is nothing if not brilliantly inspired.