Tom Hanks

Somewhere in between his Oscar-winning portrayal of a gay lawyer dying of AIDS in "Philadelphia" and his performance as the mild-mannered captain of an Army ...

If Wayne and Stewart represent two ends of the American male spectrum (which was made plain in John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"), Hanks lands in the middle. He is the best you can ask for in a pitched battle for the soul of the planet. Hanks dies with his boots on in "Saving Private Ryan," but we take no comfort in this. It's the realization that a good person who's devoted his life to educating children in the hopes of forestalling wars like the one in which he's mired is here, boots on the ground, killing his fellow man. While Hannah works wonders with a role that offers little in the way of dialogue, Hanks is the engine that powers "Splash" through its airy narrative. This was the "SCTV" star's first meaty role, and he makes a 14-course meal out of it, but Hanks plays off him nimbly, setting him up for belly laughs while swiping a giggle or two for himself. John Patrick Shanley's wonderful "Joe Versus the Volcano" was also, shamefully, declared a failure. Directed by Ron Howard and written by the '80s go-to comedy duo of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, "Splash" paired Hanks with Daryl Hannah, who plays a mermaid smitten with the man she saved from drowning when he was a young boy. Rather than challenge himself, Tom Hanks doubled down on being goofball Tom Hanks, which resulted in a string of bawdy comedies wherein the star behaved like a massive jackass. [Tom Hanks was declared the James Stewart of his generation](https://www.slashfilm.com/934192/the-best-tom-hanks-movies-ranked/). He'd put in two seasons as the cross-dressing Kip Wilson on ABC's "Bosom Buddies," and probably would've done more had the network not sabotaged the show's Nielsen ratings by shifting it all over the schedule. It is 2023, and Hanks has just delivered his first truly (intentionally) unlikable character in Colonel Tom Parker.