American Hero

That's the story of my life, as it is for many. "I could quit bad habits and write a novel, but I'm stuck in my couch watching other peoples dream instead, as the years go by." I'm going to show this movie to my young neighbour following the same path: "I'll be an astronaut one day, but right now, I'll just have a joint in the bath tub." Steven Dorff is great in this role: sincere and sober (his acting, not the character). He is highly credible as a drunk cokehead and pothead. The realism is reinforced by the handshake camera and a couple of winks at the cameraman. I'm a fan of inclusions of supernatural into a realistic story: a movie is a fiction, so why being limited by the lows of physics? On the other hand, when a movie starts talking supernatural, it usually becomes a central point, leaving the characters soulless. Making digressions from a realistic comedy into a magical world is not common, except in some Latin American movies. They are often misunderstood by the viewers, as they aren't complying to knows standards. When lows of physics are breached to serve the story, I find it perfectly acceptable. Aren't teleportation, flying and telekinesis common in night dreams?

It may be strange that a mockumentary crew follows a random underachiever guy who just lost custody of his son and sent to community service. After a while it turns out he has special power, a straight up X-Men material also accompanied by his best buddy in wheelchair. The movie later follows his squandered life, which is quite identifiable because he struggles with daily problems even with his superpower, although the cycle of his drug abuse can be monotonous at the end.

Superheroes movies usually opt for mix of fantasy, using outlandish power, and connection to the character, displaying their flaws to humanize them. American Hero clearly leans towards the latter as Melvin (Stephen Dorff) stumbles even on ordinary problems, let alone crime fighting. He looks stoned and disheveled almost the entire time. There's a good quality in his character, though one must look deep enough.

I remember Stephen Dorff from Blade as the cool named antagonist Deacon Frost, as Melvin he's the complete opposite, albeit ironically still with super power. Melvin is talented and smart even without the gift, yet he's using the telekinesis power to grope women with random objects and score drugs. The movie invests so much on establishing that he's a screw up, it has repetitive party montage for a good portion of the runtime, which tends to get stale after a while.

Eddie Griffin as Lucille, the sidekick in wheelchair is also Melvin's moral compass. He's a charismatic comedian, cracking jokes and having tendency to flirt with women, but he presents good brotherhood relationship for Melvin. It's also nice that the movie adds some interviews with supporting chars to establish heroic or mundane atmosphere as well as adding slight realistic flavor.

This is in heart, a comedy drama, not an ambitious use of super power like Chronicle. It does have solid special effect for some sequences, but it's still limited and might not look superbly authentic. The ones that work better are those seemingly happen out of nowhere and its use of mockumentary serves these tricks well.

American Hero might not be as grand as the title or premise suggests, but it brings more connection with the characters than larger sci-fi or action movies. Melvin is not the hero we deserve, he's the one we will have to make do.

Based on the description, I was expecting something similar to Hancock about a superhero with deep character flaws and an alcohol problem that gets his life together. While this movie can be described as such, it really isn't. The hero of this movie primarily used his power as a parlor trick and only fights crime for like 3 minutes. The remainder of the hour and a half you are bored to tears waiting on the superhero to show up while being subjected to watching a waste of oxygen get drunk and high over and over. The powers seem more like an afterthought than it should be for a movie billed as a superhero movie. In fact they could have completely left out any powers at all, deleted the 3 minutes of action and had essentially the same movie.

I will say that the actors and director did a good job with the script they had, and if this wasn't pushed as a superhero movie, I might have rated it higher. Based on what I was looking for I found it slow and boring.

Bottom line: If you are looking for a superhero movie like Hancock this isn't it. If you are looking for a movie about overcoming addiction, then this might fit the bill.

I saw the trailer on youtube and I'm a bit of a sucker for indie superhero movies though there have only ended up being a couple good ones. Before I recommend this one I have to really recommend Special(2006) with Michael Rapaport. Its probably the ultimate superhero movie on a budget. The comparison with this is that both of these have figured out that if you can force people to make a connection with the hero in question budget becomes quite secondary.

On the surface there's a lot of reasons not to like this movie and give it a pass. There's not really a story at all. No climactic ending, the characters are all derelicts with no ambition of nobility. Not even any real charisma.

Its basically a movie where we follow some poor white/black people around what appears to be new Orleans with a camera. They go through some good and bad times ultimately with a semi-cathartic ending.

I grew up in Germantown a ghetto of Louisville Ky. Everybody you knew had gotten drunk and high by the time they were 12 and there were more stories of losers than winners so the people in this movie were my people through and through(yeah I even once jumped off a house and missed a pool.). None of it is condoned or celebrated. They clearly show the downward spiral and the redemption in the trailer.

However if you're like pleasantville middle class and the only time you've ever encountered someone drinking a 40oz can of miller highlife is when you rolled your windows up at a traffic light when approached for change you probably wanna skip this one. You are so not the target audience.

So no surprises here just a charming and sometimes sad story of a drunken loser with powers. Its worth a watch.

Griffin and Dorff are great. They deliver. Music fits, camera works. Urban landscape is realistic and true. I' don't know, but this movie surprised me.

Ignore the sucky reviews such as, just because someone expects Hancock mainstream money making style of a movie and then gives it bad review cause of that. Or I liked this one: "It says comedy, but it's not, so I gave this movie a bad mark".

Loose the expectations. Nothing dramatic happens, but its realistic enough with good acting, music, shots and screenplay to make it a solid movie that doesn't fail at the end. It most definitely does not suck and subjective remarks like that should not be implemented.

Peace