Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Brent Gillham One of my favorites and definitely underrated. A unique and timely story of heroism and its perception in society. I want badly to give this movie a ten, but some parts of it are, well, just too corny. Despite this flaw, the plot is complex and realistic-projecting a message that few want to hear in real life but one that is often welcome in the theater: things get complicated (as Bernie LaPlante puts it). Do we often try to simplify our perceptions of people by labeling them as either "good" or "bad" because it would be just too much work to do otherwise with the many complex people we meet in life? Or are we all good or bad in certain situations or according to the environments we come from?

philhodgman This highly enjoyable movie starring Dustin Hoffman, Andy Garcia, and Geena Davis is a modern morality play. To paraphrase the Andy Garcia character , we all have a hero in us if you find us at our best, and we all have feet of clay if you find us at our worst. Further, the movie emphasizes that appearances are deceiving and the person we look down on may in fact have heroic qualities that we are not aware of.The movie is presented in a somewhat stylized way, hearkening back to Capra in its oddly old fashioned characters, the overlapping scenes, the symbolic lighting, the characters' constant quest for some idealized goal.I thought that the trio of Hoffman, Garcia, and Davis played off of one another very skillfully and really seemed to be enjoying themselves in this movie. Joan Cusack and Chevy Chase steal scenes with their (deliberately) over the top acting, and the movie in the end is quite satisfying in its combination of humor and moral lesson.

parhat In the movie, after receiving an award, Gail Gayle mentions "Life is like an Onion, you peel away and the story becomes different, but when you peel everything away, everything is all a lie" as part of her News acceptance award speech. The speech represents the entire story that is like a modern day Aesop fable. Dustin Hoffman plays small time criminal who accidentally saved the life of 54 people when the plane crash landed in front of him, but someone else took the credit. Our life is basically conditioned to think that people should be given credit where credit is due, in real life, credit isn't given where credit is due. The other problem about events or historical events is that life is like an onion. When you peel them all away, nothing is really there. Things we view as hero may be not we think it is, because of our prejudices in what we view them as a perfect hero. A real hero may have none of that, we humans are full of gray areas, some we are good, some we are not so good. There's not such thing as 100% good guys and 100% bad guys. So if you have to watch this movie, what we know what we see, is not what we think it is. If you should die one day, become a spirit, you will realize that everything we hold dear and true, we're not even close. That's the Aesop of the movie. The best part of the movie is Dustin Hoffman's is at his finest, there's simply not enough screen time for him because he's just so interesting to watch. This is a highly underrated film and if you keep the idea mentioned here in perspective, you will enjoy the movie more. Just peel away your onions!

merklekranz This movie could have been much better. The basic idea is sound and intriguing. The execution however, comes across as less than sincere, and that is a serious flaw. Dustin Hoffman carries "Hero" on the back of his unsympathetic character, who is constantly sending out mixed messages. Andy Garcia is totally miscast as a street bum. Geena Davis manipulates the story in a sugar coated fashion that weakens the entire production. The film drags in places, and probably would have benefited from trimming. Bottom line. "Hero" is watchable and an above average movie. It is however, a contrived melodrama that comes across as somewhat insincere. - MERK