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Forrest Gump is one of the single most amazing films that I have ever watched in my whole life. Forrest Gump is one of the biggest inspirations to me and I have many reasons for this. It is a beautiful story of a man with a low IQ who experiences different things in life. That can encourage people to live life to the maximum level they can just like Forrest does. Forrest Gump and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button are the only two films that make me see through life and what there is to achieve within it even though they both tell different stories of life. Forrest Gump is a film that I cannot take my eyes off while I'm watching it because it is that much of an inspiration to me. Forrest Gump is a purely magical story that is really well known in the public especially with the Bubba-Gump shrimp restaurant in Manhattan, New York in which I went to when I was 13 years old. It is a comedy but I wouldn't call Forrest Gump an absolutely outrageously hilarious film because it is more of a romantic drama. Forrest Gump is the feel-good film of the 1990s and it is that simple. It is a deeply lovable story that I have watched time and time again when I need cheering up or anything like that. Forrest Gump himself is an inspiration to me as well because through Forrest I can see other different kinds of people especially people with learning difficulties, disabilities or anything else like that.
Tom Hanks' performance as Forrest Gump is a one-of-a-kind performance that can never be beaten. Personally, I think Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump is the best leading male performance of all time because he is one of the few actors who can make the character very realistic like they're a real person. Performances that are quite similar to Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump are Dustin Hoffman as Raymond Babbitt, Sean Penn as Sam Dawson, Russell Crowe as John Nash and Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button. Tom Hanks portraying Forrest Gump truly is a performance that will become legend in the future because of the accent and the truly realistic personality that Hanks brings into the character. Tom Hanks has always been an actor of such inspiration to me because he has been in masterpieces where he has portrayed different characters and has given very different points of views of films and the character's personalities. The Green Mile made Tom Hanks my favourite actor of all time and when I saw Forrest Gump, he became even more of an inspiration to me. Hanks' performance as Forrest Gump is a performance that I personally think is sort of respecting to those people who suffer with disabilities and learning difficulties in real-life by showing what it is really like to suffer from a disability. Forrest Gump is a man who is born with an unknown disability and has leg braces on his legs. The doctor says his legs are the ones that are strong but his back is really crooked. He lives with his mother in a mansion on the outskirts of Alabama. Things start taking a turn for Forrest because he starts school and he ends up being the victim of bullying. I think the one scene that sends chills down my back is when Forrest is running from the bullies while he has the leg braces on and Jenny says "Run, Forrest, Run!" Then his braces come off and he starts to run really fast while Forrest as an adult is telling the story. He experiences college, the army, ping-pong, shrimping and being a national celebirty which is a dream life and Forrest is the lucky one chosen for it. His love for Jenny is one that she never really understood because she said that he doesn't know what love is but he sees love in a clearer and better way than she does because he had love for her but she had love for sex and illegal drugs. Robin Wright Penn's performance as Jenny Curran was another amazing performance. Robin portrayed a very emotional yet a very disturbed and confused Jenny with such realistic motions and ways of expressing other people who are in that kind of situation in life. Jenny was the only friend Forrest had as a child. She achieves all of the things within high school but she got too deeply involved with sex and illegal drugs. After she was kicked out of college, she became a drug addict and prostitute unbeknownst to Forrest. Robin proves as well that only she can portray Jenny. Gary Sinise's performance as Lieutenant Dan Taylor is probably the most serious performance of the whole film because he is a man who suffers and thinks he doesn't need to live anymore but eventually his life gets back on track again. Sinise showed the really emotional side to Dan and also the very rude and abbrupt side to his personality as well. Dan is a Lieutenant of a platoon during the war in Vietnam with Forrest and Bubba as two of those soldiers. After an unexpected attack from the Vietnamese, he and most of the platoon get wiped out or badly injured. Forrest rescues pretty much all of the platoon including Dan but he had to have his legs cut off. That is where he thinks he has no other reason why to live. Dan now behaved a bit like Forrest. Dan didn't want to be called "cripple" or "freak" just like Forrest didn't want to be called "retard" or "stupid". Sally Field's performance as Mrs. Gump was an absolutely fantastic one. She reminded me a lot of Queenie in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. Sally Field is only 11 years older than Tom Hanks and she is portraying his mother. That is exactly the same when Toni Collette and Paul Dano were in Little Miss Sunshine together because Collette is only 11 years older than Dano and she portrays his mother. Mykelti Williamson was really good as Bubba but did get quite annoying at times.
Forrest Gump was the first Robert Zemeckis film that I saw and I have to say that he won't ever create another film as good as Forrest Gump. Zemeckis is a director who has given us films of different genres but all have one genre in common that the characters experience: adventure. If Zemeckis hadn't directed Forrest Gump there wouldn't be a Forrest Gump masterpiece and it is that simple. Zemeckis is a man who has brought a gift to the world as well as the film world that life can be beautiful if you live it to the maximum level. This is a film adapted from a novel and this film couldn't be better adapted in any other way than it was in this film.
Forrest Gump is my all-time favourite drama, it is the best film of the 1990s and that is probably the best decade for cinema. Forrest Gump is Tom Hanks's best film and always will be, it is Robert Zemeckis' best work and always will be hopefully. Forrest Gump is a masterpiece that is filled with comedy, beauty and heartbreak. Forrest Gump and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button are two films that are very similar and those two are the two biggest inspirations to me. Forrest Gump has its rightful place on one of my close favourite films of all time.
10/10
