Sam Elliot is one of those very rare actors who can make a bad role and/or movie better just because he is doing a role and he does it effortlessly! He is very seldom the star of a movie but whatever star is playing opposite in a scene is forgotten as your eyes will go to him.  Tall, lean, with a silver mane any old man would envy plus a mustache that falls in love with women (see the movie!) and a voice that can melt any female, plus quite a few males, that even with 50 movies plus 137 episodes and television movies he has never reached that upper tier of actors and has very seldom been listed above the title.

In "the Hero" Sam Elliot, and that mustache, star in the film experiencing every emotion a man can have including all the extremes and takes the audience along with him. We see, and believe, a woman, Charlotte (Laura Prepon), 35 years younger than him, falling in love and pursuing him. We feel bad for him when he messes up an audition and we cheer when accepting an award his speech goes viral to over 2 million people. His disconnect with his daughter Lucy (Krysten Ritter) is heartbreaking and his reaching out to the wife he is divorced from, Kathryn Ross (his real life wife), is touching as you understand why they divorced.

The story revolves around Lee Hayden, who made a western movie four decades ago that was a big hit but he is now making a living doing voice over commercials. His best, and seemingly only, friend is a fellow actor Jeremy (Nick Offerman) who had appeared in a TV series with him and now makes a living selling drugs, including to Lee and Charlotte which is how they meet. On the same day that he is asked to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Western Appreciation and Preservation Guild he receives the news from his doctor that the tumors he has found on Lee's pancreas is malignant.

Though we wish "The Hero" had followed, and gotten more into, the relationship between Charlotte and Lee just watching Sam Elliot makes sitting through this 93 minute movie a treat. Stretching it with too many waves landing on the beach, it takes place in Los Angeles, Director Brett Haley, who also wrote the screenplay with Marc Basch, throws in some not meant to be but are laughable scenes involving the poetry of Edna St. Millay and Lee, Charlotte and Jeremy smoking weed in scenes that add nothing to the movie except time. The soundtrack offers many songs adding to the many different moods in the film.

For fans of Sam Elliot this is a must see fan while those who may be familiar with his face should come to see it for the actor. Laura Prepon, of "Orange Is The New Black", is new to me and I am looking forward to seeing her in more movies.

And lets not forget that mustache!!

Movie Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiKtUnI0u4U