Finch is set in a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by the effects of a gamma flare where, instead of everyone turning into the Incredible Hulk, the population is now non-existent and the landscape is perpetually ravaged by destructive sand storms and plagued with toxic air. Seemingly the event’s lone survivor is Tom Hank’s, Finch, a world-weary engineer who scavenges the cities in search of food and supplies for himself and his canine companion, Goodyear.
As Finch comes to the dawning realisation that he won’t live forever, he sets to work building Jeff, a humanoid robot whose purpose will be to look after Finch’s dog when he’s gone. Despite Finch’s genius engineering capabilities, building a robot in a post-apocalyptic world is not the easiest thing to do and time pressures mean that Jeff isn’t quite finished when he first boots up. So as the trio embark on a pioneering adventure out west, it’s down to Finch to try and teach the robot what it means to be human, while along the way, discovering his own humanity.
Nothing pulls at the heartstrings quite like a ‘one man and his dog’ type story. Heck, Tom Hanks already mastered the trope in Turner And Hooch. But with Finch, director Miguel Sapochnik wastes very little time exploring the relationship with man’s best friend, instead choosing to concentrate on the reluctant father-son type bond that Finch and Jeff form.
With its very limited cast, the assumption will be that this is going to be an isolationist story, with the building of a robot meant as a form of companionship. But again, writers Craig Luck and Ivor Powell take things in a different direction. Hanks’ Finch is a practical man and while the cold-hearted self-preservationists among us might consider Jeff’s potential wasted at the thought of his primary function, his cinematic function is to allow a detailed study of one man confronting his own mortality and coming to terms with the inevitability of death.
While this may seem like quite the downer, the casting of Hanks as Finch is the perfect spoonful of sugar to help the weighty medicine go down. The actor’s natural, calming charisma instantly softens any curmudgeonly edges he puts on screen. With Hanks delivering one of his most Hanksian American dad characters, you can enjoy the story knowing you’ll be safely guided through the emotional journey.
The heart of the movie, however, belongs to Caleb Landry Jones’ Jeff. Although later replaced for the most part with CGI, Jones’ innocent charm inhabits every inch of Jeff’s character. His physical presence on set clearly helping all involved to hit the deeper, emotional beats with more humanity.
The saccharine sweetness of naive, loveable robots are normally best served in the animated world, like with Big Hero Six’s Baymax or more recently, the Zack Galifinakis-voiced Ron in Ron’s Gone Wrong, but thanks to a tightly focused plot, any zany hi-jinks and comedy montages are controlled and restrained enough to be believable and work in the film’s favour.
Less of a horror than I Am Legend and yet no less intense, the set pieces of Finch scavenging in supposedly abandoned cities are nerve-janglingly stressful, with Sapochnik exerting the same kind of confidence behind the camera that we last saw him using in Game Of Thrones’ The Long Night’. However, it’s that act of being released from the safe confines of the workshop and out into the dangerous, beautiful, complex world that allows Finch to pass that all-important message to Jeff; the wonder and joy of what it means to be alive.
Finch is out now on Apple TV+