I honestly don’t understand why Sam Elliott doesn’t get more work. By my way of thinking, if you can put Sam Elliott in your film, put Sam Elliott in your film. You’re not going to find better of whatever it is that you thought Sam might be able to do. Here’s a short list of roles I’ve seen this year in which I would rather have seen or heard Sam Elliott:
The 101-Year-Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared
Ike from Churchill
Anything Kurt Russell
Beast from Beauty and the Beast
The Boss Baby
Captain Salazar from Pirates of the Caribbean
The Blue Power Ranger
Dunno if there’s a comfort zone effect or something else at play, but Sam’s my go-to guy for all those roles.
Lee Hayden (Elliott) is a has-been actor currently surviving off humiliating voice-over work. Much as I admire Sam Elliott, I’m guessing this part wasn’t exactly a stretch. With an ex-wife (real life Mrs. Sam Elliott, Katherine Ross, isn’t that cute?) and an estranged daughter (Krysten Ritter) representing those closest to him, there’s no one to confide in when he’s hit with a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
For a slice of life film, this one seems more like a slice of death. Even Lee has to question why an otherwise random woman, Charlotte (Laura Prepon), decides to spend the night with him. Is she so star-struck she attaches herself to a pancreatic cancer sufferer literally twice her age? To be fair, when Charlotte meets Lee at their dope dealer’s house, she doesn’t know about the cancer or the film career, so she’s good with just the fact that he’s literally twice her age and shares a marijuana habit. It really didn’t get any better with those qualifications, did it?
The title in the picture is actually the title of the picture-in-picture of Lee Hayden’s personal magnum opus The Hero. This part confused me to no end – The Hero was an Unforgiven-like western Lee 
made decades earlier, yet in the clips Sam Elliott looks the exact same age. Ok, so maybe these aren’t clips from his history, but instead a series of marijuana-induced dreams of the new film he ponders making. If so, why aren’t there any clips from the original Hero to underscore Lee’s career? I am confused.
The Hero is an occasionally dramatic reminder that there are some useful fossils still hanging about Hollywood, and maybe somebody should unearth them from time-to-time. In retrospect, the film feels less like an honest tale and more like an extended Sam Elliott audition tape. But that’s ok; as I said upstairs, I think we need more Sam Elliott, not less. If you don’t enjoy Grey Legs sans Ham, however, there’s little point in seeing this Sam-I-am.
As a gunslinger, Cancer abuses
All of the opponents it chooses
His draw maybe slow
Could be years, doncha know?
But in a shootout, C never loses
Rated R, 93 Minutes
D: Brett Haley
W: Brett Haley, Marc Basch
Genre: Slice of Death
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Sam Elliott fans
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Children
