That Thing You Do, the story of a fictional '60s garage band and their brief flirtation with success, has always had a vocal core of fans, but I've never been one of them. Directed by Tom Hanks and released in 1996, That Thing is just fine, featuring some truly heroic production design (mid-century junkies who liked The Aviator and Far From Heaven will find much to admire here), but marred by a tacked-on romantic subplot and the appearance of not one but two Saintly Old Black Men assisting the white protagonist on his voyage of self-discovery. All in all, a swell enough vanity project, but nothing I needed to see twice.
That said, the newly released double-disc edition of That Thing is not nearly as superfluous as you might expect. Included here with the theatrical version is Hanks's 150-minute original cut, which, while still no masterpiece, is an improvement on almost every level. The longer film has a more even pace and, surprisingly, a tighter plot, foreshadowing events that previously seemed to come out of nowhere. Hanks's cut also restores some great work by the charming cast (particularly then-unknown Charlize Theron, who's promoted from a glorified extra to a minor character), as well as even more snazzy faux-'60s art direction and music.
Speaking of music: the title song is heard maybe a dozen times throughout the course of the movie, and its a tribute to songwriter Adam Schlesinger (taking time off from his day job in Fountains of Wayne) that it never once irritates. The director's cut highlights some of his other equally catchy contributions to the soundtrack, which alone is enough to justify its existence. Though it's nowhere near A Hard Day's Night (or even The Monkees' Head), the new, longer That Thing can take a place among the accomplished minor entries in the canon of rock 'n' roll cinema. — Dan Erdman
