Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks, 2011): USA

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.  Viewed at Century 25, Union City, CA.

Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks) is a devoted team lead at the local U-Mart store, where he is casually laid off because of a lack of higher education, which prevents him from climbing the retail chain’s management ladder.

After several failed attempts at job hunting, Larry, who spent 20 years as a Navy cook, decides it’s time to go back to school and get an education.

He soon realizes the gas-guzzler he’s been driving, is eating away at his wallet, and the family home he once shared with his ex-wife is now too big and too expensive.

Downsizing to a scooter and eventually a small apartment, Larry is advised by a guidance counselor at the local community college to start small, so he enrolls in Econ 101 and Speech.

Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts) is the speech professor who’s married to an unemployed “writer” that blogs all day while intermittently surfs porn on the net.  Her life has evolved into annoyed teacher by day, and margarita booze hag by night.

While accepting the challenge to teach an 8 a.m. class with a minimal enrollment of ten students, she is hungover but happily relieved that there are only nine students in attendance – until Larry enters the room.

A corny love interest develops between the two, and jealousy ensues when Mercedes encounters Larry with a much younger female companion, and assuming they’re together, she proceeds to give Larry a hard time in class.

There is not much spark or chemistry between Hanks and Roberts, but instead an obvious friendship, and for this reason the humor works – it’s a surprisingly funny film, sans the romance aspect.  Downsizing and eliminating excess baggage, in business, personal belongings, and relationships are the repetitive themes at work here.

Humorous sequences abound in both classroom settings, especially the snoozer class Econ 101, where Professor Matsutani (George Takei) confiscates cell phones and touts the prodigiousness of the textbook – written by none other than himself.

Julia Roberts redeems herself of the bland character from 2010’s Eat Pray Love, by alternating between characters of embittered wife, tedious professor, and “boozilla” hound, with sequences that are spot-on funny.  The supporting cast of Pam Grier, Taraji P. Henson, and Cedric the Entertainer as friends and neighbors, help to move the plot along, while the film’s weakest links are the trailers, which show the least funniest scenes with a predictable storyline.

Larry Crowne was co-written by Tom Hanks and funny lady, Nia Vardalos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.