Very disappointing...

The Worst Film Ever

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Provoking movie about press and heroes and the how this has a treatment by all kind of media to delivery to the public, could be better if they didn't have overdone some easy situations,maybe it don't filled the Hollywood's formula to making movies,so the product is damage since the beginning, somehow works and to a certain extent, another fantastic performance from Hoffman and Geena Daves too,remembering heroes don't give up!! Resume: First watch: 1995 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.25

The premise of Stephen Frears' "Hero" is a Capra movie written by a cynic, which is good. Yet it ends like a Capra movie, which, by the 90's standards, isn't so good.TV replaced newspapers as domineering media. Journalists are modern vultures in quest for sensational stories. Geena Davis is one of them, Gale, the wisecracking Jean Arthur-figure, fantasizing about THE scoop while crossing her legs on her boss' desk. And Andy Garcia is John Bubber, Gary Cooper's John Doe, the bum toyed by the media to become an instant hero, for a public hungry for models."Hero" asks insightful questions about our need of heroic figures as scapegoats to vent our social anger on. The most thought-provoking question it asks is to which extent we're ready to accept a phony yet pleasing reality rather than a non photogenic truth. And the cynical aspect of the film is embodied by the main character: Dustin Hoffman as Bernie LaPlante, perhaps the only person in the film who doesn't inspire a déjà-vu feeling from a Capra film, although he looks like an older version of Ratso Rizzo, the depth lacking.LaPlante is a small time crook specialized in pick-pocket and gold cards selling. To say that he's a loser is an understatement: he's divorced, her wife married with a fireman, his son loves him but hasn't got much to admire. To accentuate the pathos, LaPlante steals the purse of his lawyer during the trial that makes his jail sentence imminent and having his free days numbered doesn't make him remorseful at all. Not only he gives his son the kind of advice to show that a Father-of-the-Year, he ain't, he also keeps his stealing habits. We get it, LaPlante is unredeemable.Is he? Maybe the portrayal of LaPlante flirts with one-dimensionality to better prepare us for the film's pivotal moment when he saves, all alone, 54 passengers from a crashing plane by just opening the emergency door. A panicked boy begs him to find his father, LaPlante's son reflecting in these sad-looking eyes decides him for once, to accomplish one unselfish deed. He saves many passengers trapped in the plane, including Gale whom, conditioned by his job, he steals the purse. The trick is that he never finds the father (who safely left the plane) and out of guilt, chooses to fade in anonymity again, while, Gale, on stretchers, also conditioned by her job, is already trying to find the hero.The rest of the film is pure Capra material, the TV channel tries to find the mysterious man, and the only hint left is the shoe Bernie left before getting on the mud. The mysterious Cinderella man or 'Angel of the Flight 104' becomes the most wanted man of America. Bernie tells the story to the lucky John Bubber who drove him home on his van (which is also his house) leaves his shoe so he can give it to a crippled friend, and naturally, when one million dollars are offered, Bubber has his moment of weakness. Everyone is convinced, starting by Gale, a sweet, good-looking and sincere Vietnam vet, the perfect antithesis to men like LaPlante.Except that he's not the hero, and that's the cynical core of Stephen Frears' comedy, when truth matters less than the way media depicts it, when phony figures bring more hope and goodness than real ones, especially in the crisis-stricken America of the early 90's. Bubber is perfect beyond words, becoming a sort of modern prophet, awakening a comatose kid with the right words. At that point, the film is so full of irony that we stop waiting for LaPlante to raise his voice, we wonder if it really matters, since Bubber really helps people. Of course, the story can't do without the recognition of LaPlante's merits.And this is where the main weakness lies. No one ever listens to LaPlante, not after the disaster, no after he learned about the reward. Take the scene where he gets back home all mud-covered with one shoe left, his wife doesn't even try to know what happened, she angrily blames him for disappointing his son, who wanted to go … to the movies! I was like "oh no!", he'd just seen his son! they could've come with better than that. What if she didn't believe him, while the son does? How come LaPlante never tells anyone or tries to confront Bubber, through another channel? The same pattern works in reverse: when Bubber tries to tell the truth to Gale, she doesn't let him speak. You know something is wrong when the simplest situation in the world doesn't happen for the sake of a script. The result is that most of the film consists on LaPlante getting more and more pitiful, Bubber more and more heroic, and in-between, Gales doesn't have suspicion only until the last minute. The result is a good satire about the social role of media but an average comedy that never challenges its own potential and keeps on repeating the same situations.It's just as if Frears were so hurried to get to the scene when the name of LaPlante would be mentioned on the same breathe than Bubber and everyone reacts to it, that he took the 'easy way' to get to it. Dustin Hoffman specialized in various roles where he pointed out the role media frenzy can play on a social level, from "All the President's Men" to "Mad City", "Wag the Dog" or "Tootsie", in the best ones, things always go totally out of proportions and even media can't control them. In "Hero", everything stays in-control and kind of kills off the whole cynical aspect of the premise.It's just as Frears trusted us to believe in the characters' actions', while if there's one thing to learn from his own film, is to never take firm beliefs for granted.

This movie could have been much better. The basic idea is sound and intriguing. The execution however, comes across as less than sincere, and that is a serious flaw. Dustin Hoffman carries "Hero" on the back of his unsympathetic character, who is constantly sending out mixed messages. Andy Garcia is totally miscast as a street bum. Geena Davis manipulates the story in a sugar coated fashion that weakens the entire production. The film drags in places, and probably would have benefited from trimming. Bottom line. "Hero" is watchable and an above average movie. It is however, a contrived melodrama that comes across as somewhat insincere. - MERK

A great, inspirational, and underrated movie. Mariah Carey's song Hero was originally written for the movie by Carey to be sung by Gloria Estefan. Between Mariah being persuaded to keep the song for herself and the people working on the movie thinking the song didn't quite fit the film, Mariah Carey kept the song for herself... eventually making it one of her signature songs. The movie itself is a signature in my life, no matter how corny it may seem. It has so many beautiful moments between all the cornball scenes. This film is pretty heroic in its own way.The film touches on a variety of concepts that I've explored in my own life. The worst of people can do something great, the greatest of people can do something bad. It's knowledge like that that gives us hope to become a better person and it gives us warning to remain good. Life and reality and all those things try to place us in roles where we're meant to act a certain way and be a certain way because of who we are. But we are all individuals living in individual moments. Just as no two people are the same, no two moments are the same. Change is always available... We just have to figure out a way to use it for our good.Watch this movie!