I was intrigued by this:
American movies have forgotten how to portray heroism, while a large part of their disappearing audience still wants to see celluloid heroes. I mean real heroes, unqualified heroes, not those who have dominated American cinema over the past 30 years and who can be classified as one of three types: the whistle-blower hero, the victim hero, and the cartoon or superhero. The heroes of most of last year’s flopperoos belonged to one of the first two types, although, according to Scott, the only one that made any money, “The Kingdom,” starred “a team of superheroes” on the loose in Saudi Arabia. What kind of box office might have been done by a movie that offered up a real hero?
Up to a point. There is no doubt that much of what James Bowman says here is true. John Wayne-style movies just do not seem to get made any more, but I am not sure that heroism is dying out completely. I love the film, Apollo 13, for instance, for its realistic portrayal of the mental as well as physical heroism involved in getting the Apollo craft safely back to Earth after the craft suffered a massive loss of oxygen.
His point about “superheroes” is true: I thought the recent Iron Man film had some heroic as well as downright funny moments. As for other stuff, the last James Bond film, Casino Royale, while also not totally realistic, was a much grittier, tougher 007 film than recently, has at its core the fact that Bond is a hero who takes on the baddies.
The trouble is that heroism is often idealised, but I don’t have a problem with this if it involves “supermen” characters, like the last Batman film, which was pretty heroic, not to mention 300, the re-telling of the doings of ancient Greece. Outside of Hollywood, there are all those heroic Hong Kong action movies. Not to mention a film that was actually called Hero. Some of the Japanese anime films also are full of strong, uplifting moral themes.
So I do not think the cupboard is bare. But Bowman does make a good set of points about the lack of “real-life” hero films. I suspect that if there is a dearth of heroic figures on screen, some of it is down to how people, in their revulsion against war in general – a perfectly normal reaction – have taken against the military virtues. But as I hope some of the examples show, there is more to heroism than courage under fire.
Where I think there is a real problem, which the article does not really touch on, is the lack of any heroic characters in movies about business. I keep banging on about this, but it is a real pity that almost all businessmen and women are potrayed as morally sleazy or downright evil. A shame: I regard some entrepreneurs and their willingness to take big risks as heroes.
Quiz: name your top 5 most heroic films, of any genre.
Not sure that these are my top, but qickly:
The Magnificent Seven
Apollo 13
Dirty Dozen
Top Gun
Apollo 13
Hedley Lamarr: Qualifications?
Applicant: Rape, murder, arson, and rape.
Hedley Lamarr: You said rape twice.
Applicant: I like rape.
Top Gun? Quentin Tarantino called it “One man’s struggle against his own homosexuality”. It’s also shite. I’ll give you the rest though, Chris.
No particular order:
Aliens
Outlaw Josey Wales
Lord of The Rings Trilogy
Where Eagles Dare
Raiders of the Lost Ark
OK. I tried to stick to what I think JP’s sort of real heroes schtick is and avoided the more questionable leading characters. Hence no “The Good the Bad and the Ugly” or “Unforgiven”.
Similarly, whilst I will probably get hacked down for choosing “Aliens” above “Alien” Ellen Ripley is more obviously heroic in the former. In the latter she’s just trying to survive.
Whilst I have reservations about the LOTR films (TT was awful) they are wall-to-wall heroism. From the hobbits walking out of the Shire into the Great unknown to Sam dragging Frodo up Mount Doom and Aragorn leading the charge at the Black Gate.
I have also deliberately avoided anything too based on real events and left out “300” because it’s too much the superhero type thing.
Probably Indy and Josey Wales top.
I think the issue is two-fold: scripts, and actors.
Scripts are almost uniformly written from a pretty narrow perspective. The bad guys have to be either businessmen, military, or the government. They have to be white, and generally men. The good guy has to be conflicted, rebellious, etc. The straightforward good v. evil story of our times, IOW, is right out – too politically incorrect, on every front.
But the real problem may be the actors that Hollywood likes to use. A-list actors are an increasingly feminized bunch. Leonardo di Caprio? Jake Gyllenhall? The “real men” of Hollywood are aging out – Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis, etc.
Hollywood, in a nutshell, reflects a certain subculture that is fundamentally anti-masculine, anti-military, anti-business, and is therefore incapable of putting an old-school hero on the screen.
Certainly a bunch of Bogart. His movies often exemplify the true meaning of courage: doing what is necessary and right when the outcome is likely to be your own death and you are scared silly.
Casablanca
African Queen
Sahara
Merrill’s Marauders
Perhaps Saving Private Ryan of the newer movies.
There have been many incidents of heroism and many hard battles in Iraq and I am still waiting for a good movie on that, one which is unabashedly pro-US and UK.
Maybe we’ll have to wait until some of the lads who have fought there get into a position to do something like ‘Green Berets’.
Sports heroes are not courageous by my definitions, nor or cancer patients or any other long list that are incorrectly associated with the word. A cancer patient may be stoic; a sportsman may be dedicated… but they are not courageous.
Now, a cancer patient who ran out in front of a car and saved a small child, leaving their IV drip behind… or a rugby player who ran full tilt into a mob, battering his way into the rioting crowd to save someone who was being beaten to death… those.would be courageous. acts and would deserve the title of heroic.
Or…perhaps the most heroic act in recent memory, the people on board the airplane headed for DC who risked and lost their lives to save their fellow Americans.
Or firemen, pretty much every time they go out the door.
Agree with RCD on the scripts, agree with Dale on Flight 93 and the firemen.
As for films, recently only Independance Day really comes to mind where the plot is pure good v evil and thanks to some heroic deeds, the good guys win.
Yes, it’s cartoon heroism, but that’s the only kind of heroism that Hollywood will allow these days.
I must jump to the defense of Top Gun, one of my all time favorite movies (along with Butch Cassity and the Sundance Kid, Clockwork Orange and a few others). If you love airplanes, this movie is on the top of your list. I do agree it is not about courage per se. It is a love story and it is about pushing yourself out to the edge to be the absolute best at what you do. Now, given they were trying to be the best in F-14’s, this did indeed require a bit of courage, but that was not the primary theme of the movie.
“Serenity” was full of Big Damn Heroes.
RC Dean is right on all points.
Dale,
Casablanca – good choice! I agree with you in terms of sports and illness. In the latter an unfortunate side-effect is the MSM’s bizarre (and unhelpful for the sufferers, I think*) almost continual use of terms like, “heroic struggle” or “battle with”.
*And John Diamond who wrote “C: Because Cowards Get Canncer Too” would agree.
I agree on Independence Day; very similar unabashed courage is shown in both the Asteroid disaster flicks as well. (Armageddon and Impact), and not just by the guys on the sharp end.
As a spacer, I did have a few problems with one movie and a LOT with the other… but I enjoyed them nonetheless.
To me, living very much in the past as usual, James Stewart was the great hero. His Westerns, directed by Anthony Mann, were superb.
I’d add Key Largo to the Bogart list.
Scary boy that Johnny Rocco.
The Shootist.
Despite its flaky premise and schlocky production values, John Wayne’s John Bernard Books is the perfect hero – if the definition of ‘hero’ is ‘the person we hope we would be under the circumstances.’ His moral code is unaltered in the face of both great trials and great temptations. He speaks his principles loud and clear :
‘I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.’
– and he lives by them to the very end.
For non-fiction heroic films, it’s very, very hard to top ‘Band of Brothers’.
llater,
llamas
Eamon:
If you want Edward G. Robinson as a hero, try Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet, in which Robinson plays a doctor who finds the first treatment for syphilis, only to be hounded by the medical establishment.
For something a little less serious, watch Bob Cummings in Saboteur.
A hero is just a planner without a public office. I’m glad that the hero is falling out of favour. As Tina said:
I’m sure these words will resonate with all of you samizdatistas as it does with me. We need another reckless idiot who knows how to fix all of our problems like we need a carbon tax.
Here are some films I think portray heroism:
John Q
The Alamo
Schindler’s List
Braveheart
Gandhi
I especially like John Q, because it has a darker quality. He fights for his son’s life, but in the process also commits a crime.
The Alamo I think is just a classic tale of the heroism of the people that fought to hold off the Mexican army.
Schindler’s List, I thought was a powerful story.
Braveheart was another powerful story of the underdog Scottish, fighting against the powerful English.
Gandhi, I think is a hero because of how he led a people in peaceful protest against the British exploitation of India.
It seems that in my lists I have tended to, unconciously, listed movies that are based on the underdog. That is what I deem as the most interesting heroes. They don’t have all the right tools, or superpowers for the jobs they must do, but they find ways to succeed. They fight against the odds to battle against forces greater than themselves.
Well so many choices to agree with.
I fear you are in for a long wait for a heroic movie about the Iraq/Afgan war though Dale, for the reasons RC Dean pointed out above.
I’ll just put a few of the older more straightforward heroic one I can think of…
Carve her name with pride
Reach for the sky
The Cockleshell heroes
The Dam Busters
Went the day well?
The Gallant Hours – Admiral Halsey’s Story
The Battle of Britain
Operation Thunderbolt
TLOTR
Casablanca
One thing these movies have in common is great music, Is there a connection ?
I thought Pursuit of Happyness was rather heoic
Zulu
Das Boot
Master & Commander
Casablanca
Schindler’s List
And to those who like Braveheart… I thought it was the second worst movie I have ever seen (Pearl Habor being the worst and the only one in which I have ever walked out of in the cinema before the end).
Oh and ‘Hero’ was essentially a paean to Chinese fascistic nationalism. Well shot and directed but utterly nauseating… a modern ‘Triumph of the Will’.
I think the reason for the phenomenal success of the Lord Of The Rings films was that they portrayed a struggle of good vs. evil at just the time in history when those things suddenly, briefly meant something again. “There is good in this world, and it’s worth foitin’ for”. Bernard Hill’s portrayal of Theoden’s fear and then acceptance of death and his redemption is the highlight, but there are lots of them. Aragorn floats above this a bit as more of a cartoon superhero, but that’s largely because they made a bit of a hash of the whole Paths Of The Dead thing (would prefer a bit more Dante, a bit less Scooby Doo).
On the other hand, you could argue that the real flaw in the Star Wars “prequels” was that they don’t really have a hero; on the contrary, their whole aim is to show how the apparently evil character was just a bit of a mixed-up kid who never really intended to be evil.
Mine would be:
1. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
2. Das Boot
3. The Right Stuff
4. have to agree with you on Apollo 13
5. and the Magnificent Seven too.
I think the anti-heroism thing started more than 30 years ago though; John Wayne in The Searchers is a good example.
Top five heroic films:
Lawrence of Arabia
Casablanca
A Man For All Seasons
Yojimbo
Raiders of the Lost Ark
I don’t think the cupboard is bare of heros either, but movie producers, authors, etc., are a little embarassed, or maybe imaginatively ill-equipped to create unabashedly heroic characters.
If you grow up in world of mushy moral choices, where your vision of the world is limited to a flat continuum of equally gray alternatives, how can you can you begin to conceive of a world of stronger, sharper contrasts? The question reminds me Auden’s poem Shield of Achilles. Here is what a world without heroes looks like:
A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who’d never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.
What a sad and empty place to live.
That quote from Auden is quite chilling in our present circumstances.
I haven’t seen it in a long time, but Powell and Pressburger’s film ‘The life and times of Colonel Blimp’ is if I recall it right a pretty sympathetic portrait of what was even then a derided ‘type’.
There is another minor film of around the same period, called ‘The Foreman went to France(Link).’ It is based apparently on a true story of an aircraft factory foreman sent to France to prevent the Nazis getting hold of some vital equipment. Simple straightforward heroism without histrionics.
In a similar vein perhaps is ‘The Pied Piper(Link)‘ based on the Nevil Shute novel of the same name.
As for heroic ‘derring-do’ what about ‘The Prisoner of Zenda(Link)‘ (either the 1937 or 1952 versions)
Agree with PdH’s selection of ‘Master and Commander’ – that role was tailormade for Russell Crowe, and hope he will do more of them – but will observe that the film is not-very-true to the character that O’Brien wrote.
For a film hero out of the normal mould, may I suggest ‘No Highway in the Sky’, with Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. The eerie connections between the plot of the movie and the posterity of our gracious host are purely coinicidental.
llater,
llamas
War movies and westerns of the John Wayne era went out of fashion in the late 1960’s/early 70’s, and at least here in the US they became a bit jingoistic for the former and a bit unrealistic for the latter. I guess the idea that John Wayne as Captain Whitebread charging up that hill wrang a little hollow when he didn’t see a hostile shot fired in his direction his whole life. As for Westerns, they grew out of a period when people could still believe in such myths – the white hatted cowboy ready to sacrifice all, the virgin pure schoolmarm, the clearly bad gunslinger for whom any motivation wasn’t necessary – he was just “plum mean”. No nuance, zilch.
Then came Eastwood, quite bit good, a little bad, a nuanced amalgam of righteous force. But the bad guys had a least some motivation and good guys overall were a little hard to find (e.g. High Plains Drifter) and the women weren’t virgins. Of course this made the traditionalist Wayne turn over in his yet unoccupied grave. But I’d say Eastwood was a Hero, a bit “superfied” with his ability to gun down 3-4 baddies at a time.
Probably the last realitively pure hero movie that didn’t have totally stretched characters (i.e. superhero) or some “leftish characterized” hero would be Silverado.
Pah! Heroes! Who needs em? They’re just another tool used to manipulate us into believing that someone else will come along and make everything better, so we end up waiting for them rather than getting off our arses and doing something about it ourselves.
DC, funny, too, that your choices reflect movies based on real life events
Three off the top of my head:
“Bullitt” — McQueen’s character never loses sight of the mission and he doesn’t get intimidated by anyone: his judgment is his light, and he steers by it.
“The Fountainhead” — same thing, much bigger scope.
“The Right Stuff” — in the golden age of American flight test, and early space flight, giants didn’t walk the earth: they took their lives in their hands to fly above it.
Just about any of those magnificent 40’s/50’s movies that, in a very British manner, understated the heroism of the recent Second World War – Reach For The Sky, Cockleshell Heroes, The Dambusters, Ill Met by Moonlight, Carve Her Name With Pride and so on. Agree with Perry on Zulu and Master and Commander though.
As for “The Kingdom”, I got the impression that the objectivity of the movie was that they sent 4 people to Saudi as a calculated insult among which were a black man, a woman and a Jew. Certainly I would not state that the movie contained a ‘team of superheroes’ in much the same way that I wouldn’t say that “SWAT” contained any ‘superheroes’.
hey Perry – we both said Das Boot at the same time. Very good point about Master & Commander though.
Don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but worth looking up a wonderful Q&A that John Wayne did at the Harvard Union. Wonderful to see the way the guy wins over a crowd of extremely hostile beatniks, including the following:
(hippy student): “Do you look upon yourself as the embodiment of the American hero?”
(Wayne): “Hell, these days I look upon myself as little as I have to”
LOTR
The Longest Day
12 Angry Men
The Increedibles
The Hunt For Red October
High Noon
12 O’Clock High
Pork Chop Hill
The Great Escape
The Sand Pebbles
The longest day
In which we serve
Casablanca
African Queen
The great escape
I’m surprised that nobody’s mention the Die Hard movies yet. Particularly the first two. John McLane is my sort of hero, the ordinary guy in an extraordinary situation who simply doesn’t quit. And who then pulls a Cincinnatus at the end and goes back to his normal life. The ‘almost DH4’ movie ‘Tears of the Sun’ is excellent as well, with not-very-PC bad guys to boot.
To pick 5 top heroic films, I’d have to choose:
Die Hard
Appleseed (2k4 version)
Sword of the Stranger
300
Gladiator
Somewhat randomly, without too much thought:
Schindler’s List
The Grey Zone
L’Armée des ombres
Soldier of Orange
High Noon
Well, now I see there’s nothing really random about my choices.
Heroes went out of fashion during the sixties, and war movie heroes especially, because heroism requires achieving a certain point of moral clarity that modern, or post-modern, moral relativism denies as being possible.
It is rare to find a character like Capt Miller in “Ryan”, who can sum up his purpose in life so succinctly.
The cliche’ driven writers in hollywood and TV cannot often transcend the demand for shorthand and shortcut plot devices like evil businessmen or rogue, tainted, anti-hero cops. The stereotypes allow easy plot development by using recognized stock characters so little time and effort is wasted getting to the required chases, explosions, and shootouts.
Personally, I have always been mystified by the alleged shortage of heroes, as I have found them all around me during my life. The fact that they were flawed and conflicted, i.e., human, only made their courage, both physical and moral, all the more admirable.
I am not surprised that such concepts and values as honor, devotion to duty, and heroism are devalued and regularly perverted by many in our debased culture. What is refreshing, and inspiring for the hope I still nurture in my breast for our future, is the repeated enthusiastic responses that actual or frankly depicted heroism brings forth from the supposedly media programmed populace.
There is a yearning for exemplars of moral, intellectual, and physical courage that is deeply ingrained in the human psyche, reaching back to our most primitive, proto-human period of development.
It is our need for such figures which sometimes leads people to follow false prophets. And it is the need for men and women with independent minds and hearts to assume such roles that defines the challenge that awaits the best among us.
Thanks Ted
I’ll check it out. I’m a big fan Of Edward G Robinson. Your post also reminded me of the film “And the band played on”.
Dr. Francis, as played by Matthew Modine was quite heroic in his way.
Yes, the ones that occur to me are all quite old films. There’s a heavy dusting of war films, but most of the best depictions of heroism have something to do with moral fibre rather than just cash bang wallop heroism. Moral fibre has been replaced by a mixture of earnest politicking and sentimentality in the modern film director’s toolkit, hence the dearth of modern films depicting heroism.
The Alamo
A Man For All Seasons
High Noon
Carve Her Name With Pride
Zulu
Operation Crossbow
Ice Cold in Alex
A Town Like Alice
Sergeant York
Cyrano de Bergerac
I admit that Cyrano isn’t really about heroism, but it is about moral fibre and anyway the last ten minutes or so are about as good as the cinema gets.
From some of the others previously mentioned:
The Right Stuff
Apollo 13
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Die Hard
Tears of the Sun (yes, I liked that movie)
The Incredibles
Serenity
The Magnificent Seven
Others that I liked that embodied masculine heroism:
Second Hand Lions
Open Range
I think Hotel Rwanda merits at least an honorable mention, too.
A lot of good movies have been listed here. (Although, The Incredibles? And listed twice?! Really, now . . .) I don’t think I could choose a “Top 5” from among them.
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned V for Vendetta. He’s a pretty heroic character in my opinion.
Let me put in a plug for “Ikuru”, a Japanese movie that showed a true hero for today, someone who saw where simple human kindness required a given response, but all the inertia of the bureaucracy militated against it, and he won. I respond to the movie as a government employee, and I understand how much real courage it took for the hero to achieve his goal. Yes, I realize the courage needed to go against the expectations of your bosses and coworkers sounds like chicken shit compared to attacking a bunker with an machine gun, but from what I see day to day, I’m not so sure.
Enjoy your site,
Tim C
Some that have not been mentioned:
Shane – Alan Ladd, Van Heflin and the debuts of Walter “Jack” Palance and Brandon DeWilde. Shane is the quintessential mysterious stranger who, after serious provocation, does the bad guys. The only flaw in the movie was a scene where Ladd and Van Heflin had a fight in the muddy corral and Ladd’s buckskin outfit was spotless after it was over.
Unforgiven – Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. Best Picture – 1992.
We Were Soldiers Then – Mel Gibson. True story of the Ia Drang Valley.
I’d have to list these:
The Pursuit of Happyness
Sin City
Rob Roy
The Passion of The Christ
The Pursuit of Happyness
I like “The Pursuit of Happyness”.
Proud to post here,
Dan
Pimpernel Smith
Carve her name with pride
Tale of two cities
Mr Smith goes to Washington
A Man for all Seasons
Let’s get some more recent examples in here (not that there’s anything wrong with Bogart):
Air Force One — how could you not like President Jack Ryan?
Terminator 2
Order of the Phoenix
Order of the Phoenix ranks at the bottom of the HP films – I give it two and a half stars. Ron Weasley was shafted out of screen time. Snape kinda gets neglected. They completely forgot about the ghosts. (Peeves would have been an asset.)
The flow was choppy in places – something that ten ten minutes of extra shooting could have fixed. The Slytherins got shafted out of screen time – something that would have been remedied with a much longer scene (1-2 minutes) where Umbridge sets up her little KGB squad. There should have been a half-minute scene explaining the teacher evaluations.
The scenes right after Harry’s kiss and the one near the end where he finally chats with Dumbledore failed to properly set the mood. In both cases this could be fixed by beginning each of the scenes with Harry entering the room – to show that first moment of Harry’s emotional interaction with the present company in question.
Busting through the doorway of the Room of Requirement was stupid.
The casting and acting were good. The second-tier heroes Luna and Neville got their due. (Ask George Takei about second-tier cast members getting the limelight hogged by the first-tier.) Special kudos to the casting of Luna – many filmmakers would have botched her portrayal. Luna is not only a barking (ahem) moonbat, but she is also the most emotionally resilient student at Hogwarts.
Of the films, Goblet of Fire was best.
Lots of great films here. My first few choices would be:
1. Children of Men
2. Rabbit Proof Fence
3. Braveheart
4. Hotel Rwanda
5. Schindler’s List
1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Band of Brothers
3. Saving Private Ryan
4. TLOTR
5. Schindlers List
Shane
High Noon
12 Angry Men
Dirty Harry movies
I have to mention Harry Potter as a heroic character, although, needless to say, the movies weren’t nearly as good as the books.
Eamon:
When I hear “And the Band Played On”, I prefer to think of Jimmy Cagney in The Strawberry Blonde, even if the movie has nothing to do with heroism. It shows, though, that Cagney could do comedy. Cagney was also quite funny in The Bride Came COD (with Bette Davis — who knew she could do comedy?) and Billy WIlder’s One, Two, Three, which is a riot. The Strawberry Blonde, unlike Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet, is also available on DVD, which is a plus.
As for heroic Cagney, 13 Rue Madeleine is a pretty good movie, although it’s in many ways Carve Her Name With Pride as Hollywood would have done it.
A really good movie (and another based on a real event: Operation Mincemeat) that I’d place halfway between 13 Rue Madeleine and Carve Her Name With Pride is Clifton Webb’s The Man Who Never Was.
Lonesome Dove
Die Hard
The Seven Samurai
Silverado
LOTR
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon/Rio Grande
Star Wars/ Empire Strikes Back
United 93
Alien
Lord of the Rings Triology
Matrix
Unbreakable
Hero
Star Wars
Almost any Jet Li film!
Maybe I’m confused by the requirements, but a film hero is someone who has a mission and succeeds with honour.
I know Star Wars has been over analysed over the years, but the story is one of good verses evil and you can’t get more basic that Star Wars.
I know you mentioned Hero in the text, but it really is a fantastic film – shame it and most of my list are based on Japanese or Chinese morals!
I guess you are proved right – Hollywood doesn’t do heroes anymore!
I forgot 3:10 to Yuma. A great western (although a remake).
Last of the Mohicans (D D Lewis)
Hondo
Gladiator
Braveheart
The Edge (Sir Anthony Hopkins, a particularly favorite actor of mine)
I could list many more, including most of those selected here by others.
Here’s a couple of religious-oriented heroic films:
The Hiding Place
The Blues Brothers
Alisa wrote:
You could simply have mentioned the original with Van Heflin and Glenn Ford. Speaking of Ford, it reminds me of another heroic performance, that of Gloria Grahame in Ford’s The Big Heat. It’s too bad for Ford that Grahame and Lee Marvin get all the good scenes.
Ted, sorry, but I have not seen the original.
The Blues Brothers? Entertaining as it is, that’s no more heroic than Animal House. (And I would hardly call it “religious-oriented”, either.
Die Hard.
Lord of the Rings, as well. Though that’s obviously originally from a different time.
All good choices. I like the Once Upon A Time In China films. Jet Li plays a very good hero.
I would also like to nominate a TV film Stories of Courage: Two Couples. Two stories of people who helped save people during WWII. The 2nd story is best: a couple running a school for sons of Belgium military who take in Jewish boys and hide them in plain sight amongst the other boys.
The Shootist
Carve her Name With Pride
TLOR
Serenity (along with Firefly)
are amongst my favourite hero films
Forgot to add the smiley 🙂
Hmmm…can anyone thing of heroic comedy films other than they few mentioned?
Blazing Saddles:-O
Twelve O’Clock High
Twelve O’Clock High
It’s hard to think of an Australian movie that qualifies. We seem to have left heroic movies to others. The closest recent movie was called ‘Getting Ahead’, about a stripclub owner who is being shaken down by the local corrupt cops, so grows some marijuana heads to make some money. He was never shown doing good deeds, so he’s not much of a hero.
Perhaps I should nominate ‘Weeds’ as a heroic TV show? Maybe our heroes and heroines should be suburban law-breakers.