''The Hero'' is a 2017 American

comedy-drama film Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

directed and edited by

Brett Haley Brett Haley (born ) is an American filmmaker and actor best known for his work on '' The Hero'' and ''Hearts Beat Loud''. Early life Haley was born in Illinois and raised in Key West, Florida and Pensacola, Florida. Haley developed an inter ...

and written by Haley and Marc Basch. It stars

Sam Elliott Samuel Pack Elliott (born August 9, 1944) is an American actor. He is the recipient of several accolades, including a National Board of Review Award, and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, two Primetime Emmy Aw ...

Laura Prepon Laura Helene Prepon (born March 7, 1980) is an American actress. She rose to fame with her role as Donna Pinciotti in the Fox sitcom ''That '70s Show'' (1998–2006). She is also known for portraying Alex Vause in the Netflix comedy-drama ser ...

Krysten Ritter Krysten Alyce Ritter (born December 16, 1981) is an American actress and model. She came to prominence when she appeared as Jane Margolis in the AMC drama series ''Breaking Bad'' (2009–2010) and its spinoff film '' El Camino'' (2019). She th ...

, Nick Offerman and

Katharine Ross Katharine Juliet Ross (born January 29, 1940) is an American film, stage, and television actress. Her accolades include one Academy Award nomination, one BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. A native of Los Angeles, Ross spent most of her ...

and follows an aging movie star who deals with his terminal illness. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2017 and was released on June 9, 2017 by The Orchard.

Plot

Lee Hayden is an aging Western actor in his 70s with a golden voice, whose his best performances are decades behind him. He mostly gets voice work for ads. Peter, Lee's agent, calls to tell him a group wants to give him a lifetime achievement award for his acting work in Westerns, but no job offers. Directly afterwards his doctor confirms he has pancreatic cancer. Lee spends his days reliving old glories and smoking marijuana with his former-co-star-turned-dealer, Jeremy, but the surprise cancer diagnosis brings his priorities into sharp focus. Besides trying to tell him, he also contacts his ex-wife Val and attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter, Lucy. Instead of telling them about the cancer he says he's going to do another film, his euphemism for the cancer. Also inviting Lucy to the award ceremony on Sunday, she can't, but instead Lee arranges to take her to lunch on Tuesday. He runs into Charlotte, who he'd met in passing at Jeremy's. She asks for his number and he invites her to be his date at the awards ceremony. On the way there in the taxi, they both take a bit of ecstasy. It helps both of them get through the event smiling. They do official photos, meet and greet with guests and he even signs autographs. Then, after watching a clip, Lee goes on stage to accept the award. A video of it goes viral, as he regifts the award to an audience member, saying everyone there is deserving of it. The next morning, Lee wakes up in his bed with Charlotte next to him. Over coffee, he reiterates that she's too young for him as she's not much older than Lucy. Notwithstanding, they soon strike up an exciting, contentious relationship. They discover his speech went viral. Charlotte invites him to her stand-up comic routine that evening. In the meantime, Peter calls to say that Lee's now flooded with offers. He faxes him a script for an audition on Tuesday and Jeremy runs lines with him. At the audition, Lee breaks down as he seems to be an emotional response to the scene, perhaps because it is not dissimilar to his own issues with his daughter. Perhaps because Charlotte's material was all about the negative aspects of dating a much older person, perhaps he'd surfed for info on his cancer and hadn't slept well. Upset and angry, Lee lashes out at a fan, then he goes home. There he consumes copious amounts of alcohol and other substances. He slept through his lunch date and when he comes to he sees her messages, but she's unreachable. Charlotte arrives, apologizing for her set. Lee finally tells her he's dying and she makes him promise to tell his family and to undergo the procedure his oncologist proposes. He first tells Val who gets in touch with Lucy and he can make amends. Lee celebrates his 72nd birthday with Charlotte.

Cast

as Lee Hayden *

as Charlotte Dylan *

as Lucy Hayden * Nick Offerman as Jeremy Frost *

as Valarie Hayden *

Ali Wong Alexandra Dawn Ali Wong (born April 19, 1982) is an American stand-up comedian and actress. She is best known for her Netflix stand-up specials ''Baby Cobra'' (2016), ''Hard Knock Wife'' (2018), and ''Don Wong'' (2022). She starred in the film ' ...

as Herself *

Cameron Esposito Cameron Anne Young Anastasia Esposito (born October 17, 1981) is an American actor, comedian, and podcaster known for her show '' Take My Wife'', as well as her stand-up comedy and her podcast, '' Queery''. Esposito substantially focuses on topic ...

as Herself * Doug Cox as Doctor *

Max Gail Maxwell Trowbridge Gail Jr. (born April 5, 1943) is an American actor who has starred on stage, and in television and film roles. He is best known for his role as Detective Stan "Wojo" Wojciehowicz on the sitcom ''Barney Miller'' (1975–1982), ...

as Gary Babcock * Jackie Joyner at Besty *

Patrika Darbo Patrika Darbo (born April 6, 1948) is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Nancy Wesley and Shirley Spectra in the television soap operas '' Days of Our Lives'' and '' The Bold and the Beautiful'', respectively. In 2016, Darbo won ...

as Diane *

Frank Collison Frank Collison (born February 14, 1950) is an American actor known to television audiences as the hapless telegrapher Horace Bing in the series ''Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman''. Early life Collison was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Peg, ...

as Man in Dream * Andy Allo as Bartender * Linda Lee McBride as Linda * Christopher May as Director * Demetrios Saites as Paparazzi Cameraman

Production

On April 20, 2016, it was reported that

would star in ''The Hero'', directed and co-written by

. Other cast members included

, Nick Offerman, and Elliott's wife

. Filming took place throughout

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

and lasted 18 days.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2017. Shortly after, The Orchard acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released on June 9, 2017.

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 77% based on 115 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "''The Hero'' rests on Sam Elliott's understated performance, which proves more than capable of carrying the film through the less inspired moments of its somewhat clichéd story." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, the film has a score of 61 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

Official website
*
The Hero
' at AllMovie *
The Hero
' at

Box Office Mojo Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is ...

* *
The Hero
' at

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hero, The (2017 film) 2017 films 2017 comedy-drama films 2017 independent films 2010s English-language films American comedy-drama films American independent films Films about actors Films about cancer Films about comedians Films about old age Films directed by Brett Haley Films scored by Keegan DeWitt Films set in Los Angeles Films shot in California Films shot in Los Angeles The Orchard (company) films 2010s American films