Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

The Hero Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 18, 2017

There’s a certain “meta” aspect to The Hero which perhaps elevates some inherently sudsy content to unexpectedly resonant levels. Who hasn’t marveled at the completely unique and instantly identifiable voice of Sam Elliott? Unquestionably rugged, but also inarguably suave, Elliott’s voice has an unmistakable timbre and it has served him especially well through a variety of roles in the western genre. It’s also brought him a little pocket change courtesy of some commercial voiceover work, and as The Hero begins, Elliott’s character of Lee Hayden, a “character” some might argue is not all that far removed from Elliott himself, is in fact reciting a patently ridiculous line about barbecue sauce into a studio microphone. Over and over and over again, at an unseen director’s behest, a director who keeps saying “great”, only to follow up with “just one more” without any further explanation of what he’s looking for or how Hayden’s delivery might be altered. Welcome to the glamorous world of show business, ladies and gentlemen. Hayden, perhaps a bit like Elliott himself, is an actor looking back on a career that kept him more or less busy if rarely fulfilled. In just one of several “nesting dolls” contained within the film, Hayden is best remembered for an old western called The Hero, but that was decades ago. (While I bet many would cite Elliott in a non western like The Big Lebowski as an undeniably memorable performance, I’d be hard pressed to cull only one Elliott performance as his “best remembered”. That said, if forced to, I’d probably actually go with another non western film, 1976’s Lifeguard.) With few career opportunities other than occasional voicework, and with a newly diagnosed case of pancreatic cancer adding to his woes, Hayden spends much of his time getting stoned and simply watching the tide wash in from the Pacific Ocean. A chance meeting with a much younger stand up comedian named Charlotte (Laura Prepon) seems to offer Hayden at least the hint of an opportunity for some happiness, but even with this hint The Hero maintains a largely melancholic, even elegiac, aspect.

My journalistic job duties through the years along with tangential meetings with the “rich and famous” courtesy of family members who work in the Los Angeles entertainment industry have repeatedly reminded me that celebrities are not necessarily Divine Beings who are evolutionarily superior to us “mere mortals”. That awareness permeates The Hero, perhaps nowhere more apparently than in a sequence where Hayden, trying to establish a relationship with Charlotte despite their age difference, invites her to attend the only “job” (non paying) his agent can muster, namely Hayden receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from some small scale Western Appreciation Society that no one has ever heard of. The supposed soiree takes place in a completely nondescript and generic looking hotel banquet room, and it is not exactly an Academy Awards level display of wealth and glamor. Nonetheless, Hayden takes it all in stride, happily signing autographs and even bestowing his award on a random audience member, whom he suggests deserves it as much as he does, after he gives a charmingly self deprecatory “movie stars are just people” acceptance speech. That kind of almost depressive reality that some performers don't exactly maintain grasp of the veritable brass ring is also brought home in a series of scenes with Hayden's pot dealer (despite it being legal), a former co-star in a short lived western television series the two were in years ago.

The undeniable charisma of Elliott and Prepon propel this vignette laden story, one that deals with certain life or death issues almost discursively, and which probably too often goes to the soap opera level, especially with regard to Hayden’s dysfunctional relationship with his daughter Lucy (Krysten Ritter). Some kind of needless drama also intrudes in Hayden's relationship with Charlotte when she makes him the butt of some of her jokes in a standup routine, which somehow manages to hurt Hayden's feelings, despite what the film seems to suggest has been years of rejection by virtually everyone else in his life, to no big emotional effect. Co-writer and director Brett Haley also offers a few too many on the nose visual motifs, including a scene between Lucy and Hayden where they’re separated by a fence and even more obviously a recurring sequence of Hayden in The Hero mode walking up and viewing a lynching victim (he’s staring death in the face what with his cancer and all, get it?).

The film kind of veers tonally at certain points, alternating between a more or less (and sometimes opaque) “realism” and elements that include near hallucinatory or at least dreamlike scenes at the beach and a series of vignettes that feel like dream versions of Hayden in The Hero, all of which address mortality in one way or the other. While some of these conceits and others like references to poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay may seem a little overheated, the film is graced by so much performance acumen (including a great if underwritten part for Katharine Ross as Hayden’s ex-wife and mother of Lucy) that the film manages not to seem overly precious most of the time.

But despite these arguably unnecessary stylistic devices, The Hero does have real emotion, with Elliott delivering some wonderfully affecting moments. There’s a textbook case of film acting in a neat little scene (nicely framed by Haley and cinematographer Rob Givens) where Hayden is tearing up, and you can see the water welling in Elliott’s eye, but he never actually lets a tear drip down his cheek. Somehow that seems like a fitting metaphor for both the vulnerability and reserve Elliott often displays in this role, one that may in fact bring him the kind of “career” Academy Award nomination which has thus far eluded him.

The Hero Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Hero is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The IMDb lists a couple of Arri models but doesn't say anything about what I presume was a 2K DI for this often interesting and fairly varied looking feature. There are a number of different stylistic elements on display, with the dreamlike scenes supposedly kinda sorta from The Hero often having an amber hued quality which is nonetheless very well detailed, and some of the dreamlike scenes of Hayden on the beach next to the ocean bathed in blue, where a certain softness and lack of fine detail do prevail. When not intentionally graded, the palette looks natural and in fact just a little drab at times, perhaps reflective of Hayden's lot in life. Haley and Givens favor a lot of extreme close-ups of their star's iconic face, and Elliott's well earned crags look precise and natural. There are a few scenes that take place indoors with little to no lighting (other than Hayden lighting up his joint) where detail levels are minimized.

The Hero Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Hero offers a fine sounding if only occasionally robust DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Both of the aforementioned dreamlike elements, strolls by the beach and supposed scenes from The Hero, offer some of the best placement of immersive ambient effects, but even more mundane sequences like the Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony provide occasional moments of good surround activity. Dialogue is well prioritized and delivered without any problems.

The Hero Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Brett Haley and Sam Elliott


• Photo Gallery (1080p)

The Hero Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For all the technique Elliott evinces as Lee Hayden in The Hero, it's probably debatable how much of an actual stretch the character is for this iconic actor. The film is probably a bit too "arty" for its own good, but the sheer ruggedness of Elliott's demeanor kind of anchors it in a grittiness that even all the shots of waving wheat in the honey hued sunset can't undercut. Performances are top notch in this piece, and I'm going to go out on a predictive limb and state I bet Elliott gets an Academy Award nomination for his work, though that aforementioned questionability as to the "stretch" factor may deny him the actual trophy. The Hero's technical merits are strong and the Blu-ray comes Recommended.