The Hero

It's one of his finest and most memorable performances. Unfortunately, the script fails to rise to the level of Elliott's artistry.

Two good things are not enough to goose this all-too-familiar tale of a selfish man who wakes up one day, realizes that he blew it and scrambles to fix it before it's too late.

The script around him doesn't do Elliott or the character justice, and is a missed opportunity at a late-in-life comeback role for the one-time Western star.

Is there an American actor of more meaningful solitude than Sam Elliott?

Elliott does some of his finest work in one of the best movies in his career, a drama that feels like a biography.

Nothing terribly novel here, but director Brett Haley has assembled a strong cast and a generous spirit, and Elliott has a way of finding poetry in silent gaze, speaking his lines as if written on velvet.

[Elliot's] a pleasure to watch, but a little more movie would have been welcome, too.

If Sam Elliott wasn't in it, The Hero would feel like a slog.

Not a lot happens in The Hero. Yet it is a deeply affecting warts-and-all rumination on thwarted ambitions, failed marriages and filial relationships gone sideways.

There are no surprises here, and the whole affair is a bit too modest. But Elliott's voice and his face have a lived-in quality that is unforgettable. The actor makes The Hero an enjoyable, worthy drama.

Rarely has a mainstream film taken as unflinching a look at aging and illness without losing its sense of humor.

Most of all, it benefits from the presence of Sam Elliott, still abiding after all these years.