Tom Hanks delivers a Falstaff for the ages in ‘Henry IV’: EW review
In the Shakespearean canon, there are roles that approach ample as checkpoints in actors’ careers — Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Sir John Falstaff, the fat charlatan that Shakespeare (and reportedly Queen Elizabeth herself) admired so able-bodied he wrote him into three plays, Henry IV, Locations One and Two and The Merry Wives of Windsor. In the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles’ assembly of Henry IV, a amalgamation of both locations one and two into one hardly aggrandized tale, Tom Hanks tackles the role with a accurate appetite and contentment that has been defective from some of his added acute onscreen roles of late. But what makes Hanks’ Falstaff so special, a Falstaff for the ages who outshines any I’ve anytime apparent in the role, is that he never loses his heart. Henry IV is a aberrant play — something that is not absolutely accomplished if divided, as written, into Locations One and Two, but that feels boring if burst together.