Hero

An engaging and intelligent comedy that manages to pay tribute to the conventions of its genre and still be very much its own thing. [02 Oct 1992]

Hero dips into the world of Capra's Meet John Doe, and comes up with an even more repellant visage of the Media/Citizenry connection than that film.

Stephen Frears' Hero is a slyly entertaining reinvention of the old newspaper comedy - Frank Capra's Meet John Doe, William Wellman's Nothing Sacred, Howard Hawks' The Front Page - on the altar of TV. In an image-dominated age, what does the concept of heroism mean? Not much, once TV gets hold of it, Hero says. But it's peachy, not preachy, celebrating energy, resourcefulness and cheerful amorality. [02 Oct 1992, p.45]

The movie is enjoyable if it isn't taken too seriously. Geena Davis sparkles as a TV reporter who is among those rescued, Chevy Chase is amusing in an uncredited role as a TV executive and Garcia is, as usual, both charming and believable, in a movie-star kind of way. Hoffman is always interesting to watch, even when, as in this movie, he reminds us a little too much of some of the other roles on his resume. [04 Oct 1992, p.12C]

Stephen Frears's film is always lively and often shrewd, but in the end Hero is at war with itself. The movie's Capraesque heart is locked in battle with its cynical, contemporary brain.

Aside from a few moments of comedy between Davis and Chase (in a relationship lifted almost unaltered from THE FRONT PAGE), HERO is an embarrassment best forgotten by everyone involved.

If a hero is one who perseveres and never gives up, this is one Hero that should have quit when it was ahead.