It seems like everyone who likes this movie just can't get enough of Sam Elliott's melancholy brooding, staring off into space and poignant pauses. Good grief. After 5 minutes that gets old. Sam Elliott has gotten a lot of mileage out of that well worn, old rancher shtick and has made a career of it because of its appeal (as is obvious by the way too high rating here on IMDB), but this movie was just too much of that. In smaller doses, like in the series The Ranch, it was palatable, but for a movie that is built completely around it, it's way overdone. Elliott's acting (playing the dying aging actor Lee Hayden) is ok for doing what he does, but it's actually all he does. He's a personality actor, not a character actor by any stretch, and if you like what he does, I get it, but outside of that the movie was just not good. The plot was totally predictable, there was no chemistry between Elliott and his love interest played by Laura Prepon, the dialogue was forced and not realistic, some scenes were phony and just there to create tension and push the plot forward (the comedy club), his relationship with his estranged daughter was laughable instead of tragic as intended, and the old western movie dream sequences that were thrown in just for cinematic appeal offered no value and were non-sequiturs. His wife (played by his real wife Katharine Ross) and his drug dealer (played by Nick Offerman) were two characters that were in scenes that were somewhat entertaining. But this was a long, slow movie that was really B-O-R-I-N-G, and I'm a fan of slow movies that examine the human condition. But this self-absorbed, one-trick pony, lackluster romance movie is badly written and not very well acted that was difficult to stay engaged with. You just want Lee to ride off into the sunset and get it over with already.
Review of The Hero
