News of the World (2020)

It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks) is a news reader in reconstruction era Texas.  He travels from town to town and reads newspapers at a public gathering, charging a dime for entry.  On his way from Wichita Falls, he comes across an overturned wagon and a black man hanged from a tree.  He also encounters a girl in Indian attire.  Documents at the wagon show that Johanna Leonberger had recently been 'rescued' from Kiowa - her parents and sister had been killed 6 years before and she was kidnapped - and was being returned to family in Castroville, Texas.  Kidd is still trying to reassure the girl that he means her no harm when a patrol of Union soldiers arrive on scene.  After demanding to see his loyalty oath and making sure he wasn't armed (his shotgun was only loaded with birdshot), they left the scene unchanged.  Ah, those friendly blue bellies.  Yes, they leave it to a former Confederate officer to cut down the lynched black man from the tree and give him a proper burial.  Of course, he does, because he's a good man.  Riding into the next town, Kidd tries to hand Johanna to the locals.  No luck.  Finally, he decides to take her himself.  There then follows a series of unlikely adventures as the pair travel south.  First, central Texas has become a desert that looks very like New Mexico.  Well, that's not as bad as Texas Rising, but is still distracting.  They must contend with a trio of pedophiles, an unrepentant Confederate who is slaughtering buffalo, a faulty wagon drawn by a frantic horse down a cliffside road, a haboob, and an inability to communicate with one another.  Johanna speaks only Kiowa and a few words of German while Kidd speaks English and a few words of German that do not overlap with Johanna's words.

Kidd views the troubles of his life as a punishment for the things he had done.  One is led to believe that he is speaking about his service in the Civil War.  Kidd served in the 3rd Texas Infantry, which fought exactly one battle.  Mostly, it had garrison duty in Texas.  Hardly a record to deserve divine punishment.  Prior to the war, he was a printer, which explains his current profession of newsreader.  Again, hardly something deserving of divine punishment.

A slow-paced Western that missed the point of the story.  Clearly, this is meant to be a story about the growing attachment of the two main characters, but instead it is a series of unfortunate events on the road to Castroville.  Mediocre.