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Created Jul 03, 2017 11:48PM PST • Edited Jul 18, 2019 05:21PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Sam Elliott deserves a Western-icon lifetime achievement award. Hey, that’d make a great little movie, if it included the behind-the-scenes angst of an elderly man facing his mortality, even as he’s feted by fans and groupies alike. The Hero is all that, albeit Elliott plays a less successful doppelgänger of himself.

   The Hero is every bit the Hollywood love-letter that La La Land was, Western division. After all, the pull and lore of the movie industry is purest in Westerns, e.g., Elliott in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

   The film works on several levels: two in the movie, including the Hero auditioning for a movie with dialog that is true to his own life, and at another level, since the Hero is loosely modeled on a sad Sam Elliott.

   Elliott’s wife Katherine Ross plays his ex, not his love interest, who is played by the thirtysomething and oh-so-sexy Laura Prepon. Apparently, only old men are attractive to young lovers of the opposite sex, at least in Hollywood movies. Both women are terrific: Ross is wise and sexy, Prepon impetuous and sexy.

   The Hero is a great little movie. Tremendous cast, quality writing, sexy turns and engaging material prove more than enough for this hero’s journey, a sunset passage from movie immortality to real human mortality.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Sam Elliott not only carries the movie, he inspired the movie, which is loosely based on him and his lucrative career in Westerns and as a voice-over mainstay. He’s terrific, a big-screen actor of consummate skill. The scene where he gets bad news from his doctor is a masterclass in the form, his features darkening ever so slightly as he absorbs a horrible new reality.

   Elliott got his start in the movies as an extra in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, just one of 99 roles on his IMDb page, Tombstone being another.

   Terrific Supporting Cast

   • Laura Prepon bewitches as a thirtysomething single girl around town, town being Malibu. I’ve missed the intoxicating Miss Prepon in her famous TV guises, but am now a besotted fan.
   • Krysten Ritter is also a big star who is new to me. She’s frigidly cold as a daughter-done-wrong by her promise-breaking Hollywood daddy, which is just how the part should be played.
   • Nick Offerman is always a treat, here as a Malibu denizen who once played a part in a Western TV series and now deals drugs to friends and lovers.
   • Katharine Ross leavens the movie as The Hero’s ex-wife, fascinating casting because Ross & Elliott have been married for 33 years, in Hollywood!

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Brett Haley’s film is canny and crafty, not unlike an old man who know how the world works. Haley sets-up naturalistic plot twists, then pays them off in most satisfying fashion. Bravo.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Great 4.0

    Brett Haley wrote The Hero with Marc Basch.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.2

    Much of the movie features actors self-medicating themselves, albeit the effects are mostly downplayed.

    There’s also some sweet after-sex, including an impressive flash of side-boob by Laura Prepon.

17. Sex Titillating 2.5

18. Violence Gentle 1.3

19. Rudeness Profane 2.9

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.4

23. Biological Glib 1.5

24. Physical Natural 1.0