A young man who periodically approaches people on a bench in Savannah, Georgia, tells an extraordinary story about himself. It takes place in the early 1980s, and the man sitting on the bench is called Forrest Gump.
Plot of the film
What can a person with an IQ of 75 become?
You name it. A football player, a Wetnam War hero, a member of the US ping-pong team, a Fortune millionaire, even a lawnmower.
If his name is Forrest Gump…
In the city of Savannah on the Atlantic coast, Forrest Gump waits for a bus and tells his life story to anyone who will listen.
How he helped Elvis Presley, and how he learned to run fast. How he managed to get into an ordinary school despite having an IQ of less than 80, and how he met Jenny. How he impressed the famous coach Paul Bryant, and what he talked about with John F. Kennedy.
How he joined the army, how he served in Vietnam, how he became a war hero and fought communism by playing ping-pong. And he even helped President Nixon resign early.
Forrest’s fate was strange and capricious, like a leaf in the wind.
Lying his way to salvation helped him fulfil the promise he had made to Bubba: to buy a boat and go into the shrimping business. Lieutenant Dan also kept his promise and became his assistant. But he never calls him sir, of course.
Then Hurricane Katrina wrecked every boat on the coast except the Jenny, and the Bubba Gump company finally recovered. And then Lieutenant Dan had a lucky investment in a fruit company, and they got rich at last and irretrievably rich.
And then Forrest’s mother died, so he stayed in Greenbow. Doing charity work and mowing lawns for free.
Jenny would come and go and Forrest would go for a run. It was a very long run, it just happened.
Now he got a letter from Jenny – and it came straight to Savannah. Because even if he’s not too bright, he knows what love is….
Tom Hanks agreed to play Forrest almost immediately.
He read the script in an hour and a half and said yes.
On the condition.
“That the movie be historically accurate.”
For “Forrest Gump”, Hanks turned down the role of Andy Dufresne in “Shawshank Redemption”. It’s probably for the best. For everyone…
At first, Forrest had to speak with a slight southern accent. But then Hanks convinced director Robert Zemeckis to put on a heavy accent. Just like Michael Conner Humphries, who played the young Forrest.
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