That Thing You Do! (1996)
Directed by Tom Hanks
A Pennsylvania band scores a hit in 1964 and rides the star-making machinery as long as it can, with lots of help from its manager. But behind the scenes, the group’s sudden fame tests their strength, their maturity and responsibility, and their ability to resist the temptations that money and notoriety always make possible.
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What critics compared That Thing You Do! to
In 1996's That Thing You Do!, Tom Hanks is a cynical music promoter who squeezes every dollar from a one-hit wonder.
Greg Kinnear ("As Good As It Gets") is decent as Kathleen's scholarly columnist boyfriend, while the wacky Steve Zahn ("That Thing You Do!") and David Chappelle ("Half Baked") provide the supplemental comic relief.
Hanks, who previously wrote or co-wrote (and directed) the originals That Thing You Do! and Larry Crowne , acknowledged at Empire , “In the early drafts of Greyhound I was able to go deep, ignoring budget and physics.
I’m still partial to Charles Laughton, but a fascinating consensus emerged around Tom Hanks, whose first project as a director and, more importantly to our purposes here, as a writer, That Thing You Do! is downright beloved by many.
Hanks obviously believed in the material, and considering one of his only two other screenplays includes the all-time classic That Thing You Do!, his instincts are obviously pretty sharp.
In just his third turn as big-screen screenwriter – after 1996’s That Thing You Do! and that unfortunate 2011 rom-com Larry Crowne – Hanks whittles the book down to a streamlined 92 minutes (and for some reason changes his character’s first name to Ernest).
And Hanks has crafted a fine screenplay, only his third (1996’s “That Thing You Do!” and 2011’s “Larry Crowne” are the others); his adaptation manages to make accessible the constant and somewhat repetitive voicing of orders and commands, giving a real sense of the importance of constant and consistent communication to naval combat.
Hanks, who also wrote the script (his other scripts include That Thing You Do! and Larry Crowne ), adapting C.S. Forester’s 1955 novel The Good Shepherd , maintains that tension through repetition.