If this movie weren't about the trendy topic of homosexuality, everyone would have noticed just how dreadful it is. The characters, with the exception of Denzel Washington's, are one-dimensional and cardboard. The performances, with the exception of Washington's and Tom Hanks's, are cartoonish and heavy-handed. This is a piece of leaden propaganda--I would call it "obvious" propaganda, but it seems to have fooled most of the critics. Don't let it fool you.