(2008. dir: Brian Smrz) The worst thing about Hero Wanted is its Netflix blurb, which gives away a crucial plot-twist. If you haven’t read it, don’t; if you have, know that the thing plays better than it reads. I’m not the world’s biggest Cuba Gooding Jr. fan, but he’s good here. The whole cast is. Kim Coates and Tommy Flanagan from Sons of Anarchy tear it up as bad-assed, petty crooks. Ben Cross gets the Sam Shepard role, which must be fun for him, playing at the gun-toting, grizzled veteran. Even Paul Sampson, the arrogant cat who will lead Reedus down the straight-to-hell garden path that is Night of the Templar in a few years, is well-cast and totally loathesome.
And then there’s Reedus.
I’ll be frank: towards the end of my Reedus-fest I was hitting a wall. Roles that would have inspired enthusiasm in me just weeks prior were leaving me cold. After watching so much of him in so concentrated a period, I was jaded, even blase. I had to give it a rest. Now, after four months Reedus-free (I’m not even watching the Walking Dead this season, check me out), I see him in this, as a sad-sack overgrown kid who just wants to go to the beach, for chrissake, and it all comes back to me. Even in this relatively unobtrusive role, his greatness is apparent. He can communicate the tiniest hurt, defiantly masked, by a few twitches of facial muscles. He can take weak dialogue and speak it like it’s something credible that an interesting person would actually say. And (spoiler alert) his death scenes always kill me.
Smrz is mainly a stunt-guy with a resume as long as your arm, and he and cinematographer Larry Blanford find some great camerawork, like long, zippy dollies speeding smoothly across action scenes. There's also an ambitious tracking shot in the opening, following a suspicious-looking canine into a seedy neighborhood, lifting up to detour through an apartment and back out the window to reunite with the dog, which crosses paths with one of our ne'er-do-well characters, and we attach ourselves to his journey instead. It's fabulous stuff, and although the backbone of the plot sprawls across some absurdities (the hero takes enough gunshots, burnings, savage beatings, you name it, to lay even a Clint Eastwood character in his grave, and, aside from the odd scar or burn-mark, he looks great), the whole package is tied together with sufficient moxie and conviction to carry it off.
Rating: three stars
Reedus Factor: four stars
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