Nice guys don’t always finish first

Everyone’s All-American
Hanks and Howard have a lot in common. Beyond reps for niceness and TV sitcom backgrounds, both were raised in southern California, have long, stable marriages (31 years for Howard, 18 years for Hanks) and a couple of adult children in the business (Bryce Dallas Howard and Colin Hanks). You could say that between them they represent an iconic arc of All-American malehood. Howard played the All-American kid (Opie in the 1960s) and the All-American teenager (Richie in the 1970s), while Hanks has played the All-American young male (his 1980s comedies) and the All-American man (his 1990s dramas).

But, of the two, Hanks always felt darker. Lord knows he has layers of charm, but beneath those, every once in a while, you glimpse something hard and unforgiving and driven, with little time for the social niceties that Howard, even in his 50s, pays subservience to. Howard needs this darkness in his leading man — whether it’s Hanks or Russell Crowe or Michael Keaton — or his films feel too light.

In his recent Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire, Howard says the most overrated virtue is “trendiness” and the trait he most deplores in himself is “emotional reliance on other people’s approval,” and these two answers, particularly the brutally honest second one, help define his moviemaking style. He’s basically an old studio hand, making old-fashioned movies with the audience’s old-fashioned sensibilities in mind. There’s a scene in “Splash” when Allen and Madison first return to his apartment and head up the elevator, but the camera stays shyly in the lobby. It pans up to the floor indicator, which stops between the third and fourth floors; then the scene bashfully, sweetly fades. It’s a 1930s moment in a 1980s film, and that sensibility is as responsible for the success of that film, and Howard’s career, as Hanks’ charm.

Yeah yeah, but how is ‘The Da Vinci Code’?
All of which is to say: Ron Howard has always been good at the sweet and the bashful but he’s never been particularly good at challenging our shared assumptions; so, despite the first-grade reader logic at the beginning of this article, he seems like the last guy to make a movie out of “The Da Vinci Code,” which challenges the greatest shared assumption in the history of the western world. How does he handle it?

Twenty minutes into “The Da Vinci Code” I thought: He’s blown it. The rhythm of the movie is off: chase scenes aren’t thrilling or urgent enough, while expository scenes, which should allow us to breathe, feel too rushed and hectic. The rhythm everywhere is an awkward middle ground.

Hanks blows it, too. As in “Road to Perdition,” he muzzles his considerable charm only to arrive at a blank state. He has zero chemistry with Audrey Tautou, and he and the movie don’t spring to life until Ian McKellan turns up to show us what fun is. Paul Bettany’s Silas, meanwhile, is the most sympathetic character in the film. You know there’s trouble when you care most about a murderous albino monk.

As for the great challenge to our shared assumptions? Howard handles it all in a soothing rather than a revelatory way. “Hey, just because of this, doesn’t mean that.” It’s another awkward middle ground. Basically I agree with him — just because this, doesn’t mean that — but it’s such an obvious attempt to soothe the absolutists of the world that it comes off as a pat on the head, soothing no one. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be nice.

Here’s my own awkward middle ground. I liked the art history and the biblical theory in the film — Lord knows Americans could use more of both — and because I’d just watched Howard’s first directorial effort, “Grand Theft Auto,” I got to revel in how far as a director Ronnie Howard has come: from filming at a demolition derby to filming in the Louvre. He also got tears to well up in my eyes near the end, the bastard. But “The Da Vinci Code” is still a disappointment for both men.

Every 11 years. I guess we’ll have to wait until 2017 to see what they do next.

Erik Lundegaard misses Donna Dixon. He can be reached at:

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