Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Heroes Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov June 1, 2020

Jeremy Kagan's "Heroes" (1977) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment. There are no bonus features on the release. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

At first it isn’t entirely clear why Jack Dunne (Henry Winkler) is different. He routinely does things that surprise the people around him, plus there is something suspicious about his energy levels, but it is hard to tell if this is the way he always is, or if he is pretending to be someone else? If he is an imposter, what is he trying to accomplish? Right before he leaves the psychiatric ward, Jack mentions that he is going to look for an old friend to build a worm farm in Eureka, but the statement quickly gets lost in a sea of chatter. Then shortly after, he is seen trying to outrun a bunch of cops in the heart of New York City.

Is Jack just another multi-faced troublemaker? It sure looks so.

Later on, while moving quickly through the crowds Jack ‘accidentally’ bumps into Carol Bell (Sally Field) and together they board a bus heading west. With the cops now out of the picture, Jack does his best to befriend Carol and a few hours later she surrenders to his charm, first openly enjoying his jokes and then casually confessing that she plans to marry her fiancée back in New York City. The confession does not have an effect on Jack’s strategy, but by the time the bus pulls over at a roadside café so that the passengers can grab a bite to eat he no longer looks like a troublemaker, and the more he opens up to Carol, the clearer it becomes that he is just an emotionally instable person pursuing an old dream. A couple of incidents, one of them a violent brawl involving the cranky driver (Val Avery), force the new friends to get off the bus to meet Ken Boyd (Harrison Ford), a Vietnam vet-turned-amateur race car driver, who shared a lot with Jack while they fought the commies in the jungles. Ken welcomes them at his farm and then lets his old buddy take his place in a local race dominated by local drivers, but eventually turns down his offer to join him and start from scratch as a worm raiser. Ken’s custom race car then becomes Jack’s car and with Carol in the passenger seat the travelers go back on the road to track down another Vietnam vet who was lucky to come back home alive.

Jeremy Kagan’s Heroes visits the exact same place that Adrian Lyne’s Jacob's Ladder did in the early ‘90s, but the two have a drastically different tone. In Kagan’s film the post-traumatic stress and nightmares that overwhelmed the lives of so many Vietnam vets are placed behind a big facade of jokes and laughs that actually make it look like a quirky road comedy. In fact, had its contrasts been allowed to flourish slightly more and bits of its romance traded for bolder eccentricity, it is hard to imagine how right now it would not have been grouped with Robert Altman’s popular films from the same era. (See M*A*S*H and Nashville).

The quiet romance that emerges between Winkler and Field’s characters keeps the film grounded in reality, which is that of a country that is undergoing a slow but irreversible transformation. The Vietnam war has ended, the country has moved on, and the ‘heroes’ have been pushed aside and left to deal with their issues. Some of these ‘heroes’ have accepted their new fate and some, like Winkler’s character, have turned rebels, but because few people understand what they are actually going through their rebellion looks off and causes all sorts of different problems. (In Jacob’s Ladder the vet’s mind routinely unplugs itself from his reality, so his misery is vastly more intense than that of Winkler’s vet). These problems are at the center of the film and over time complete the vet’s profile.

There is outstanding chemistry between Winkler and Field that makes their relationship look unique and authentic, but it has to be underscored that this isn’t as simple as it sounds because there is non-stop overlapping of free-flowing comedy and drama that quite easily could have turned the film into an unbearable parody. There are a lot of strong cameos as well, though Ford’s contribution to the film is actually instantly forgettable.

Kagan relied on the services of cinematographer Frank Stanley, who also lensed Michael Cimino’s directorial debut, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, as well as Ted Post’s Magnum Force.

*This release has the original theatrical ending of the film, which features the classic Kansas tune “Carry on Wayward Son”.

Heroes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Heroes arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment.

The release is sourced from an older but very solid master that was supplied by Universal Pictures. To be honest, with only a few minor encoding tweaks the technical presentation would have been quite the visual stunner, though even as it is on my system the film still looks very, very nice. The age of the master shows in some of the darker footage where extremely light crushing sneaks in as well as during the panoramic shots where both delineation and depth could be better. But there are no traces of problematic digital work, and the element that was used to produce the master -- likely an interpositive -- was very very healthy, so the overall appearance of the visuals is as pleasing as I expected and wanted it to be. Small density fluctuations remain, but they are part of the original cinematography. In fact, with a brand new proper 4K master most of them should be even more pronounced. The color grading job is very convincing. The primaries are solid and healthy while the supporting nuances are wonderfully balanced. There are no stability issues and distracting age-related imperfections. My score is 4.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Heroes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Option al English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The audio is very healthy. The upper register, where masters of older films usually reveal weaknesses, is clean and stable, and elsewhere there are absolutely not signs of deterioration. Clarity, sharpness, and balance are very good. Dynamic intensity is also very pleasing for a film from the '70s.

Heroes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Most unfortunately, there are no supplemental features to be found on this release.

Heroes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Heroes looks deceivingly simple and in a number of different ways. It very easily could have turned into a big and unbearable parody, but instead it has a very attractive Altman-esque vibe that allows the comedy and drama in it to remain legit. Of course, it also helps a lot that the chemistry between its two stars is as good as it could have been. Mill Creek Entertainment's release is sourced from an old but very solid master that was supplied by Universal Pictures. However, there are no bonus features on it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.