From: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: HERO
Summary: r.a.m.r. #01567
Keywords: author=Maloney
Date: 9 Oct 92 18:00:47 GMT
Reply-To: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA


				    HERO
		       A film review by Frank Maloney
			Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney

     HERO is a film directed by Stephen Frears, from a script by David
Webb Peoples.  It stars Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, Andy Garcia, with
Joan Cusak, Kevin J. O'Connor, James Madio, and with uncredited cameos
by Edward Herrman, Fisher Stevens, and Chevy Chase.  Rated PG-13, due to
mild profanity, mature subject matter.

     HERO is Stephen Frears's third Hollywood movie, the earlier two
being DANGEROUS LIAISONS and THE GRIFTERS.  Frears previously directed
the British films THE HIT, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, and PRICK UP YOUR
EARS.  HERO is far and away his most "Hollywood" film, evoking as it
must, the films of Frank Capra.  But of course, Capra was enough of his
own artist, enough outside the Hollywood mainstream, that his is one of
the few directorial names transformed into a defining adjective by the
critics: Chaplinesque, Hitchcockian, Fellini-esque, Spielbergian,
Capra-esque.  You will be particularly reminded of MEET JOHN DOE when
you go to HERO; as Bernie LaPlante (Dustin Hoffman) says repeatedly,
trust me on this.  Frears manages to bring off a bold updating of the
Capra-esque vision of the common person as the unsung hero.  John Bubber
(Andy Garcia), in his turn, says more than once everyone is a hero, but
then John Bubber is a liar.  Some have called Frears's film cynical.  I
say rather that he is more grounded in our contemporary sense of the
ironic.

     The story, written by David Webb Peoples, balances the comedy of a
very sharp media satire with the heart-warming story about the nature of
heroism.  The story is slow and deliberate getting going -- a Frears
trademark -- but once the foundations are laid, everything proceeds
quickly and quirkily, rich in character development, in emotion and
laughs, all laid on by three nearly perfect performances.

     Another of the things that makes HERO a Hollywood movie, to a
greater degree than DANGEROUS LIAISONS or THE GRIFTERS, is the star
power of his cast.  Although Glenn Close or Anjelica Huston has an
undeniably Hollywood star power, the subject matter and source materials
of the earlier movies are sufficiently outside the mainstream as to make
them look and feel rather like imports or independents with larger
budgets than normal.  But here in HERO we have one of Hollywood's living
legends, Dustin Hoffman, playing opposite two of the hottest younger
stars working today, Geena Davis, fresh from twin successes in THELMA &
LOUISE and A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, and Andy Garcia, who knocked offf
everyone's socks in the last GODFATHER movie and is generally seen as
quite the cutie.

     Garcia, as the homeless, undecorated Vietnam War veteran becomes
the perfect hero, plays his role with great dignity and strength,
becoming a real hero.  He exudes the moral sweat of a man who is doing
the wrong thing for the right reason and turning a dishonest act into
one of high purpose and effect.  In a word, he's trapped, and no one
really wants him to escape.

     Geena Davis, as Gale Galey, begins as the ultimate in electronic
sob sisters (Chevy Chase, her boss, says, "Everyone knows you're a
marshmallow, now act like a professional marshmallow), but ends as a
real person whose job is TV news.  Davis, of course, looks fantastic,
and her acting is likewise praiseworthy.  She is endearing, dignified,
funny, suitably world-weary, suitably desperate, heartbreaking as she
warms to the idea of a hero, first as the one good story she always
wanted to report, then as an inspiration that transform her own life.

     (Look, by the way, for a hilarious performance by Kevin
J. O'Connor as Gale Galey's cameraman.)

     But it is Dustin Hoffman, in the role of the petty thief who is the
very embodiment of the the concept anti-hero, Hoffman the discoverer of
three of the greatest physical shticks in the modern movies, who walks
off with the movie.  Hoffman, the physical actor, is non-pareil, and the
movements and gestures and expressions he has discovered to characterize
Bernie rank right up there with those of Razzo in MIDNIGHT COWBOY and as
Raymond in RAIN MAN.  In addition, Hoffman is heartbreakingly perfect
when Bernie begins to acknowledge his own deeply buried compassion and
love.  Bernie is someone who had a vision of the world so threatening,
so devastating he gave up on it and himself for years.  Bernie wants
only to be a hero to his long estranged son (who oddly seems to have no
anger about his father's long absences).  Another actor might not have
seen the complex pain in Bernie, or the underlying heroism, and it is
highly doubtful that many would have so perfectly made visible that
pain.

     I recommend HERO most highly.  Even though the movie is one too
many scenes long and despite the fact that even without his rug Chevy
Chase is out of place in this serious comedy, it is still worth even a
full admission price.

-- 
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney