American Hero

Adding a bit of diversity to the Superhero movie genre is American Hero.

Stephen Dorff is cast perfectly as a mundane style superhero. A man blessed with gifts that make him special, but too nihilistic to use his powers for anything pass doing some simple parlor tricks to get money for drugs booze and girls, but like a page out of a Marvel comic, a near death experience clears his head, allowing him to become focus on the responsibility of becoming the man his son needs him to be.

Two things that make this movie impressive:

One was the outstanding performance by Eddie Griffith as a war hero who lives life in a wheelchair. The way his life parallels that of Stephen Dorff's character, a man who has everything but does nothing, was emotionally captivating in a film you would not expect this in. It was so real and natural, it was hard to believe Griffith can walk. It may seem too high praise to say it's Oscar worthy, but it was, and it's too bad they don't even consider giving out the trophy on a flick like this.

Second was the back drop of the big easy. New Orleans set the tone perfectly for American Hero, because it's one of those places in America that really could use a man with gifts like the main character and he's barely touching the surface of his potential.

The one thing that keeps American Hero from being amazing is the documentary style it's formatted in. It's not that I'm sick and tired of the format (but I am), the gimmick feels like just that, a gimmick and it takes away from the story because it's very inconsistent. I guess it was done to make us feel like we are part of the story by making us feel we are shooting the American Hero's life but Dorff's performance was too close to what the average person would do if they had superpowers that we did not need that extra push. It's one of those things that just tells you the time and the place this movie was made, like bell bottoms or baggy paints, and stops it from becoming timeless.

With that said, I do feel that American Hero has potential to be the type of film nerds will be talking about in the aftermath of the Superhero genre with the praise of a hidden gem among them.

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

It's a very decent movie but it's NØT really about superheroes. It's about the life of a self proclaimed drug addicted, lazy A-hole who happens to have telekinesis.

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.