UnHung Hero

Unhung Hero might have a slight appeal to anyone who has an interest in penis size and who has never read sex advice columns or has any sense of science.

The film is essential just a self fascinated tale of "Look at me!" that never gets beyond the filmmaker's supposed issues with his supposedly small penis.

Much of the film, which is supposedly a documentary, seems fake and staged. And most of the film seems pointless and/or obvious ("Let's talk to porn stars about penis size!")

Though Unhung Hero is a film about the penis you essentially never see any penises. The film, like many documentaries on "taboo subjects," approaches its topic with the same coy but chaste tone you find on a broadcast TV documentary about a controversial subject.

A far far better film about a guy dealing with his size issues is the 2005 BBC documentary My Penis and I by (and about) Lawrence Barraclough which can be watched in full online. (CAUTION: It contains penis.)

There's something so icky about Patrick Moote and his false-feeling and false-sounding voyage of pseudo-discovery that it's hard not to be merely insulting about this documentary. Suffice it to say that virtually nothing about Moote's quest for a larger penis, nor his superficial exploration of why his "low average" endowment matters so much to him, is satisfying. Rather, so much of the documentary comes across as insincere and staged (though it professes to be an "as it happened" record of a sort of Super Size Me experiment in living) that the main reaction the film provokes is exasperation. For example, though the film is billed as a "sometimes painful search to find out whether penis size matters," it is patently uninterested in that question, a few desultory, unrevealing interviews with a few random women respondents notwithstanding. Anyone with a brain knows the answer to that question: Penis size doesn't "matter" (whatever that means) to the vast majority of people. To the people to whom it does matter, however, penis size matters a very great deal. Moote is one of those people to whom it matters, or such is the conceit of the documentary, so the only real question of the film is "Why does it matter so much to Patrick Moote?" But Moote sidesteps that question because answering it might have required him to be genuine. Rather, Moote takes the viewer on an odyssey of penis therapies, gets some very good advice along the way (which he appears to discard), and learns exactly nothing that might put a dent in his scorching self-obsession (and I'm not counting the hallmark sentiments hurriedly expressed at the documentary's end, the conclusion of a shaggy dog story if ever there was one). What becomes clear instead is the extent of Moote's masochism and the degree to which he must have eroticized the humiliation he supposedly feels. In other words, his shame and penis-related self-esteem issues become both his favorite topic and a kind of weapon that he wields against others. (That's most clear in the scenes in which he discusses his under-endowment with his parents and his ex-girlfriends; if you're not careful, you'd think Moote was being vulnerable and candid. Another likely interpretation, however, is that Moote draws pleasure from making people squirm.) I never believed his fiancée turned down his marriage proposal because of his penis size (there are so many other reasons why she might not have wanted to marry him, his fulminating neuroses and Olympian narcissism among them, that she'd never have needed such a superficial motivation). I never believed he seriously intended to try most of the treatments he supposedly considers. Mostly, I never believed that Moote was actually naïve enough to believe that pills and penis pumps (both of which he does try) would have any effect on the size of his junk. In other words, he depicts fake angst for fake impact. As a prolonged, Borat-like publicity stunt, it's certainly original. As a documentary, it never measures up.

I think this guy saw his way to fame and fortune and set out on a strange path right from the start. I don't believe that the proposal was real, I think it was set up to go wrong in order to get a viral video. I don't know if the idea for this documentary was planned right from the start or it came later.

Basically, Patrick comes across as completely insincere at all times, if he is an actor I don't think he is a great one, he looks like he's pretending in the proposal video and there is never a point in this film when I believe him or his 'struggle'.

Not a great film, I got bored very quickly and doesn't tell us anything new.

I had the pleasure of seeing the world premiere of Unhung Hero at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. Unhung Hero provides a really humorous look at professional comedian Patrick Moote's struggle to deal with the angst of having a small penis. His neurosis and insecurity translates into a very humorous, entertaining and simultaneously provocative documentary. He raises many issues such as whether the proliferation of pornography has led to the exaggeration of expectations and increased our sexual insecurities. He takes on a humorous worldwide journey asking whether his penis is too small and what he should do about it. In the process he explores many bizarre techniques for increasing penis size. While the film is humorous, he uses a comedian's insight to explore humanity's obsession with the size of genitalia. In so doing, he literally probes many hard questions about our attitudes towards sexuality. Unfortunately, the film's subject might make it difficult for it to gain the mainstream audience that it deserves. Anyway, Unhung Hero is recommended to anyone who is willing to think about our sexual mores with an open mind and a sense of humor.

UnHung Hero (2013)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mildly entertaining documentary about Patrick Moote, a man who gets on the jumbo screen at a sporting event to propose to his girlfriend but she rejects him. We learn that it was because of his small penis so Patrick goes around the world trying to make it bigger. UNHUNG HERO kept me mildly entertained as I watched it but I had a hard time viewing it as a documentary. For starters, there's never any proof that this girlfriend dumped him because of his penis size. I mean, perhaps she was just embarrassed at the time? Perhaps she just wasn't ready to settle down? Perhaps hearing from her on if she walked off because of his penis size would have helped things. Also, a lot of this just seems to be done for humor as Patrick is constantly talking about his small penis. We never really see it either so who knows what the truth is. With that said, there are some funny moments scattered throughout and especially when he goes overseas to see how those men handle having a small penis and see what they do to try and make it bigger. We get a few doctors and sex experts talking about sizes and the history of men worrying about it. Again, if you've got nothing better to do then this is something worth watching. However, it's certainly not a well-researched or detailed film.