From: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Subject: HERO
Date: 07 Oct 92 05:33:18 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Windows/DOS Users Ed Group

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, btw, 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
	"Well, I'm a little muddled." -- Glinda