Movie Review: The Hero

The Hero ** ½  / *****

Directed by: Brett Haley.

Written by: Brett Haley & Marc Basch.

Starring: Sam Elliott (Lee Hayden), Laura Prepon (Charlotte Dylan), Nick Offerman (Jeremy Frost), Krysten Ritter (Lucy Hayden), Katharine Ross (Valarie Hayden).

 

I fully support what seems to be writer/director Brett Haley’s newly found mission to give older, talented character actors and actresses lead roles in movies that treat those older people with respect. Haley had a surprise indie hit a few years ago with I’ll See You in My Dreams, in which Blythe Danner played a woman who has been widowed for 20 years, and finally finds love again – but not quite in the way you expect. What I appreciated about I’ll See You in My Dreams is that it wasn’t one of these phony, senior citizen uplift movies that seem so popular with people like my mother (which I don’t begrudge, but don’t really respond to either). Haley seems to be playing with the genre in some interesting ways, but while he avoided the clichés we are used to seeing, he didn’t really replace them with much. That movie gave the great Sam Elliott a fine supporting role – and I suppose Haley and Elliott liked each other, because they’ve reteamed now for The Hero – with Elliot in the lead (this seems like a pattern for Haley – whose next movie stars Nick Offerman – a supporting player here). It is a fine performance by Elliott, but it’s in the center of a movie that doesn’t really go anywhere, or have all that much to say. It’s interesting, it’s always a pleasure to watch because of Elliot, but when it ends, you wish there was something, anything more to the film.

 

In the film, Elliot plays Lee Hayden a figure not unlike Sam Elliot – an aging actor, with an iconic voice and mustache, who doesn’t work much anymore. He is best known for a Western – The Hero – from 40 years ago, and in some ways has coasted on that ever since. He’s divorced, although he’s friendly with his ex-wife (Elliot’s real life wife, Katherine Ross – always good to see her, and perhaps Haley can create a vehicle for her) but he doesn’t much talk to or see their daughter, Lucy (Krysten Ritter). He has one friend – Jeremy (Offerman) his one time TV co-star, and now pot dealer – the two get stoned, and watch Buster Keaton (not a bad way to spend the day to be honest with you). It’s at Jeremy’s where he meets Charlotte (Laura Prepon) – a stand-up comedian decades Lee’s junior, who (I think, probably coincidentally) not unlike his daughter, although no one mentions this – and they start seeing each other. What Lee doesn’t tell her – or anyone, at least not right away – is that he has pancreatic cancer – and probably not much longer to live.

 

Elliot is always an intriguing screen presence – and in recent years, that has been used well in supporting roles. Everyone knows Elliot – if not for being the Narrator in The Big Lebowski – than as someone else in any of his other nearly 100 screen roles. He always seems utterly at ease in his own skin, comfortable and confident. It’s interesting to see him in this role, playing an actor who gives off that same vibe, but then peaking behind the curtain a little bit, and seeing the insecurity behind that. The film, like I’ll See You in My Dreams, plays with a few ideas that we would normally see in a film like this – first, Lee mounting one last movie himself, and then getting another crack at stardom in a bigger movie – before swerving away from them.

 

I do think though, that unfortunately, The Hero does more fully embrace the clichés that I’ll See You in My Dreams didn’t. Prepon’s Charlotte is a thinly written character, so the whole creepy May-December romance never really feels real, as you have no idea why she’s interested in him – or why, beyond sex, he is interested in her (Prepon also has one stand-up comedy scene, in which she doesn’t seem convincing at – although the movie does her no favors by forcing her to follow BOTH Ali Wong and Carmen Esposito). We also know that we will eventually get a big scene between Lee and Lucy – but as much as Ritter gives it, the scene doesn’t quite click in the way it should.

 

The film does look good – deliberately evoking old Westerns at points, and Elliot is such a pleasure to watch that the film really does work a lot better than it should. That doesn’t really mean that the film is good though. I want Haley to continue to make movies like I’ll See You in My Dreams and The Hero – movies that give great actors a chance to stretch a little in lead roles, later in life. I just want those movies to be better.