Home Sam Elliott in ‘The Hero’ is Our Hero in Real Life

Sam Elliott in ‘The Hero’ is Our Hero in Real Life

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Sam Elliott in The Hero is Our Hero in Real Life
Reviewed By Tiffany Monique Fuller    

 Sam Elliott, in The Hero, in what could be described as his most powerful performance in a “holy shit that was fucking amazing” sort of way, masterfully balances cowboy elegance and utter craziness. I don’t even know what that really means, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the sound of his voice, smooth like barbecue sauce.

 Speaking of barbecue sauce, we first meet Elliott’s character, Lee Hayden, in a recording booth. He’s doing voice-over for Lone Star BBQ Sauce. Apparently, it’s the perfect partner for your chicken. This may or may not be true, but he repeats it enough times for it to be in your long term memory. The director of the commercial requests Lee to repeat the tag many times despite it being seemingly perfect and subtly different after each take.     

This scenario perhaps serves as a metaphor for Lee’s life. He has a, “fine, whatever, sure” sort of attitude even when he finds out he has late stages of Pancreatic cancer with at most five years to live and that is if he gets a high-risk, low success rate surgery. Instead of tending to his health or even telling anyone about his illness, he tells folks he’s going to make a movie. As an “acclaimed” actor whose main fame is from a decades old western, The Hero, perhaps his drug-dealer best friend, Jeremy (Nick Offerman) or his ex-wife played by his actual wife, Katharine Ross, will take him seriously. The movie thing could peak the interest of his daughter (Krysten Ritter) if they were not estranged due to his deadbeat dad tendencies. The only one ever truly listening is his love interest, the beautiful Laura Prepon who plays a standup comic, Charlotte, who makes fun of Lee’s “balls in a tube sock” during a comedy show. Laura delivers a stellar performance as Sam’s younger love interest .  

 

Sam Elliot and Laura Prepon Photo/The Orchard
Sam Elliott and Laura Prepon
Photo/The Orchard

 While this bit gets the audience laughing, it forces Lee to leave without paying for his beer, clearly hurt by her insensitivity. Charlotte is an asshole for using him as a subject, but after she finds her way back to him to apologize, he tells her his truth, that he is dying of cancer. She makes him promise to get the surgery and to tell his family. Charlotte, while significantly younger than Lee, maybe she is exactly what he needs even if it makes him uncomfortable.

 The night Lee is honored for his work in The Hero, Charlotte gives him the drug Molly. He spikes his own champagne as does she. With a fine thing on his arm, looking sharp in his threads, he later takes the stage to say a few words laced in drugs and alcohol, hope, humility and encouragement. Who knew? It ends with him giving his award away to a random fan who he deems as equally deserving. His speech, in all of it’s hilarity, goes viral despite him not even knowing what the hell viral means.

 His new found fame relaunches his career bringing about potential new acting gigs and a very promising audition for a movie. Perhaps karma for missing his dinner date with his daughter, (Molly too is a bitch) he bombs his audition. One of the most powerful scenes of the film is when he and Jeremy are running lines in preparation for his audition. The scene he is rehearsing is about convincing his daughter that it is him as he has returned in unrecognizable form to help her.      

       

Sam Elliott and Laura Prepon Courtesy/The Orchard
Sam Elliott and Laura Prepon
Courtesy/The Orchard

 He kills it in rehearsal bringng the audience and his bestie to tears, but ultimately he fails in the audition, having a breakdown right there in front of the director. The scene is obviously a trigger for him in relation to his role in his daughter’s life. This film is colorful in many ways with its swear words and shrooms, cowboys, grandpa sex, cancer, brown liquor, fax machines, poetry, cigarettes and iconic mustaches, but this film is in part about forgiveness.

 Lee lives his life and has said, in one way or another, that he didn’t live the best life. He wasn’t the best person he could have been. These thoughts weigh him down so much so that he has given up, he is waiting to die. The surgery doesn’t seem worth it to him despite more time on earth meaning more opportunities to be the very person he wishes he could have been. It appears easier for him to make amends with his daughter because he is dying, but that is not fair to her. Why not forgive and talk things out and make it all better because it’s the right thing to do? Why wait?

 At the beginning of this movie Lee Hayden was a sad man as Charlotte pointed out the first time they met. He was a whatever guy. Fun to watch and wonderful to listen to, but not much else. By the end, we know he is now a man who indeed wants to live. It is a stunning performance by Sam Elliott. He manages to morph a movie that is heavy on the melancholy to one of hope. By the time the credits roll, you will find yourself wanting to start now or start again or maybe you will do like me and call that one person you stopped talking to for what now appears to be no good reason at all.

The Orchard released THE HERO in NY and LA June 9 with a national rollout to follow.

Directed by Brett Haley (I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS)

Written by Brett Haley, Marc Basch

Starring Sam Elliott, Laura Prepon, Krysten Ritter, Nick Offerman and Katharine Ross

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