What The Deaf Man Heard

Rating:
Summary: Charming Story
Review: This story has a wide array of charming characters. It starts on a bus with Sam as a little boy with his mother. He is talking and she wants him to go to sleep so she tells him, "Not another word out of you." He finally goes to sleep. At the next stop, she gets out to stretch her legs and get a drink and she gets attacked. When Sam wakes up, he is at the last stop, his mother nowhere in sight. He remembers that she told him, "Not another word out of you", so he doesn't talk. People think he is deaf, and he likes how they open up around him, so he keeps on pretending. The rest of the story is about him pretending to be deaf and what people say around him. (He really hears some interesting things!) I do not believe this movie was ever intended to represent the deaf community, as another reviewer stated, because Sam was never deaf in the movie. It's about what he heard while pretending to be deaf. Sam has a wonderful, helpful nature, even to those who are terrible towards him. In the end, the bad guy gets caught, of course, which makes all things right. An excellent movie! It's one of my favorites.

Rating:
Summary: Charming, funny, and touching
Review: What the Deaf Man Heard is a poignantly funny story about a boy abandoned on a bus by his mother (telling you why spoils part of the plot), who tells him not to talk to anyone. When he reaches the end of the bus line, he doesn't talk, so the everyone in the town assumes that he is deaf and dumb. The bus station manager (Tom Skerrit) allows him to live at the bus station and becomes his surrogate father. There are too many funny parts to mention here, but as the events leading up to the boy, now a man (Matthew Modine), revealing that he really can hear and talk are funny and touching. James Earl Jones is fantastic (as always) as the only person in town to figure out the truth, though he keeps the secret for his own purposes. You'll laugh, you'll cry. It's better than Cats. You'll want to see it again and again.