Tom Hanks Sees Us Election Warning In Thriller 'inferno'

LONDON (AP) — Embedded within the manic action of "Inferno," the latest big-screen adaptation of a Dan Brown thriller, is a warning about the dangers of seeking simple solutions to complex problems. In his third screen outing as Langdon, Hanks is sent on a high-stakes treasure hunt centered around the life and works of Dante Alighieri, whose "Divine Comedy" created a teeming vision of hell that has influenced artists and writers for 700 years. Hanks, who played Langdon in "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels & Demons" — both directed by Ron Howard, as is "Inferno" — says he still finds pleasure in making the border-hopping thrillers. For the viewer, the movie offers the pleasures of a good old-fashioned caper — Hanks likens it to a scavenger hunt — in which the characters must decipher a string of clues in a race against time. For the actor, there's also the pleasure of absorbing large quantities of information so his character can dispense gobbets of exposition and expertise about everything from Dante's death mask to the nine circles of hell. Howard has assembled an international cast that includes Sidse Babett Knudsen (star of Danish political drama "Borgen") as an ambiguous World Health Organization boss, France's Omar Sy ("The Intouchables") as one of her agents, Romania's Ana Ularu as a mysterious assassin and Indian star Irfan Khan as an amoral international fixer.