Hero (Hero and the Terror) USA 1988 Director: William Tannen, writer Dennis Shryack, Michael Blodgett, director of photography: Eric Van Haren Norman, music by David Michael Frank, Editor: Christian Wagner
Starring: Chuck Norris (Danny O'Brien), Brynn Thayer (Kay), Steve James (Robinson), Jack O'Halloran (Simon Moon), Ron O'Neal (Mayor), Jeffrey Kramer (Dwight)
Synopsis: It was more luck than mind in the game when the policeman O'Brien a year ago, the brutal serial killer Simon Moon arrest made: But the relief of the population was so large that the cop with the nickname "Hero" distinguished - a name that occurs as the scorn and it always reminds him of the very mild runny encounter with the beast. O'Brien has now arrived back in everyday life: he is romantically involved with his psychotherapist and looks forward to this return a child when suddenly the haunting nightmares. And at the same time breaking out of Moon from prison and is continuing its series of murders ...
RADIO HUNDD: devote our series with the final killer series HERO us again the ex-karate champion Chuck Norris, whose late work is the film has to count. With 48 years he had reached an age at which he had to make an image change slowly over ideas: HERO is the result of these considerations and presents a tamer Chuck Norris, one with self-doubt and fear equipped (!!!) average guy who has a tame family life planning, executing his partner to eat and their proposals of marriage makes. To anticipate: The plan did not work. HERO has not been a great success and with the successor DELTA FORCE 2 wandered the full beard back on familiar paths. HERO is actually a Norris fan a hard pill to swallow - and I hope Stefan will confirm this - as a serial killer movie completely useless. However, I find it highly interesting and above all funny: It might be only a few films, that act was so undermined by efforts to appear the hero in a new light. HERO looks like the pilot of a television series because he devotes the most attention to the private lives of its main character, without this Effort to justify the end in some form.
THE OUTSIDER: Thus, the film is less interesting because of his failing dramaturgical concept, but more to see as the closing film of a development of the characters, the Chuck Norris embodied by then. It is a further maturation to recognize when the "Hero" is a family life turns, is planning a quieter life and handbag thieves while shopping more comfortable reading a newspaper at random and one is in front of the head. The riots spreading "Karate Cops" and eating communists "Jungle Rambo" find by and by even her place in the Society. Even psychological vulnerability can be added and it is also their inner fears. The Location in the decade, which began to compete in the narcissistic cult of the body to conquer the middle class calls for a nightmare first working the Muscles. Accordingly, the simple drawing of the serial killer Simon Moon, which acts like an unmasked Leatherface and such a film, is closer than a Hannibal Lecter. Similar to to Midnight work with a killer figure, which lacks any psychological basis, but here is inverted. No good-looking, sly young man, but an animal-like beast, no hunting through the city, but through the intricate mazes of a renovated movie theater, which Simon Moon was once a home and is used by him after his outburst again as a domicile. Not his spirit is complex and must be covered by O'Brien, and be penetrated, but the complex of the building must, so to speak, an extra version of the degenerate psyche Moons.
STEFAN: I've seen the movie twice so because I did not see after the first could not believe that he is really as bad as it looked. The second sighting I was then instructed: HERO is not a bad movie - especially because he is probably a bad Chuck Norris movie. Certainly, the strip is facing enormous problems. As is first a strange time illogic: The killer should have gone after his outburst in the dilapidated theater to get there, "months" (O'Brien) to hide, then the cinema has been renovated, however, and he studied there some of his victims. The bites with the fact that its outbreak and the opening of the cinema to take place around the same time. So I tend to accept such illogical as a reason for a de-realization or structuralist interpretation of the plot and characters and have tried the Killer therefore more than a metaphor for exercise as manifest film character. The mine has - at the second look - very helpful to understand why some other figures were to show how they are represented. First and foremost, of course, Danny O'Brien, who will make the jump from the tough fighter for ordinary people, colleagues, Husband. The killer - this is already evident in the Alb and daydreams O'Brien - stands as a legacy through. Which must be eliminated so that the "Hero" chapter in O'Brien's life can be closed. This also coincides with the very woodcut-style drawing of the serial killer. His institute psychiatrist described him as so "animal", which is purely instinctive, and saw in rather be dead than alive (a clear-Sam Loomis quote from Halloween). The killer is thus presented as anti-principle to the human, but also cynical prosperity of the 1980s (acting by the mayor) and of course - and I will discuss later once - for industrial flooding the culture with violent performing cinema fictions: As in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, we have a disfigured killer who in the unknown offal (fittingly, in a prop room) of the cinema, lives from there on the prowl and there is abducted his victims.
FH: have so far mentioned aspects, in my opinion combine quite well, by reading HERO as an allegory to the film Persona Norris and their role in the lives of his cast. Since we have the killer Moon the outside not only in its design as a huge shadow, a phantom, but also structurally: it does little, we learn almost nothing about him, sees him only briefly. He is highly visible representative of an abstract evil. The staging of his performances is so blatantly out of the other rhythm of the film. On the other hand there is the "Normalo" O'Brien, who has suffered from its image as the proverbial "Hero" and will have to do with this role any more. His attempt to escape from the traumatic past in the form of charged Moons coincides on Metafilm level with a reinterpretation of Norris' movie person by trying to make him the silent battle machine amiable family man. Sun HERO is quite striking for the fight of his hero with his past - a classic noir motif. But because it is hardly possible, Norris to part with his film characters - his talent even enables him hardly to another show as himself - HERO also tells of his struggle with his own cast 
film past. HERO is a flawless Metafilm, he tells of the circumstances of its own becoming. In this context, I also think the name of the killer's interesting: Moon. One could perhaps say that the appearance of the killer throws an unwanted Transformation into O'Brien / Norris made: It must be a beast, a wolf - and fits into this picture, too the wonderfully anachronistic beard of the old Chuck, the "Lone Wolf" as chalk and cheese.
A: The beard is regarded by me rather as a symbol of maturity and wisdom which is also more satisfactorily with the desire of the figure, to lead a family life. The Lone Wolf days are behind him even more. In general, the entire film equivalent of a fantasy wish of the late 80s. One would basically boils, but that the world really is in order. The slightly fussy production of the film underscores this impression. As a result, one must no longer a Zero-Tolerance policy action against the criminals - the confrontation with the gangsters in the port and the bodies of the pickpocket by O'Brien has been somewhat of Schulhofrangeleien itself - but can switch back a few gears. Problems in society interested in anything but marginal, as it is now gradually retreating into the private sector. The feminization of the situation is highlighted beautifully by Kay, the partner of O'Brien. It represents a confident woman who would actually prefer to be independent and has no desire for children and marriage cage. Brynn Thayer not only by acting superior to Norris is clear that if O'Brien has completed its task and after removal Moons is finally settled, the pants will not harm the future budget. Kay was his therapist, she has domesticated the wolf. In general, the introduction of psychotherapy in this film is interesting. Happy as the devil's craft in the action genre decried (THE MAN WITHOUT MERCY) or serving as a fun insert (think of the poor police psychologist in the LETHAL WEAPON films), they may now not only exist but can even be useful. However, still some "No Compromise" laws. When O'Brien asks Moons therapist what do you do if you do not get to grips with his fears, recommends that it is increasing in such a case the rope.
STEFAN: Yes, what a piece of advice. This psychiatrist (I do not think that's a psychologist) is consistent with its helplessness psychic phenomena on the opposite side of the psychotherapist, although it has tamed the wolf, but it will not feed them now. Her despair at the birthday dinner is one of the strongest moments of the film, because this shows how unprepared the action hero on emotions ("This is quite a lot of wishes for a birthday," he acknowledged their existential concerns). I will not continue but the structural principle, the funky to the point Brought to discuss, but go to another phenomenon of self-reflexivity in HERO. The progression of the serial killer narratives has functionalized the clichéd characters more and more. Therapeutic investigators and had their "clear traits" lost more and more accepted and properties of the other side - or at least shown vulnerability. The dialectic between criminals and investigators (in their diametrical contradiction always been more of a claim) was started with the black series on the Plotebene dissolve the boundaries are blurred and that came out were such figures as Scagnetti NATURAL BORN KILLERS and in such Killer as in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS - full hybrids. HERO leads us once again splitting this in mind: the incompetence referred to psychological "problems" with the psychiatrist and psychotherapist, the trauma of the hero and not least the underestimation of the "beast". Because Moon is by no means an "instinctual animal," as his prison doctor says, but has some talent for crime plans, starting with abuse of the abrasive powder and the dental floss for sawing through his cell grid over the trick with the crashing car in which he (not) sitting , to the adaptability of his manuscript, which he the serial murder investigators some time to the nose leads. O'Brien's search for the killers and their elimination are also seen a desperate and conservative attempt to "combine clear" to the genre again - he will again be the hero, the killer will be back in the bad guy. This does not work, because we know the intimate secrets of cinema audiences on both sides.
FH: Absolutely. Precisely because the action movie and its predecessor, the Western, the convention is that the hero incorporated part of the "other" of evil - that makes him the first place for "medicine for the disease," as Stallone is Cobra as " "Cobretti so beautiful brings to the point - seems HERO with his middle-class hero even "false". The supposed action movie is in fact no one, even if pointing outward everything at one such: the powerful title (in the original of the summons and even the duel up between the forces), the programmatic, descriptive names of the main characters, "Hero" and "terror" and Chuck Norris as a main character who is allowed to stare at the poster deadly serious and motionless by his sunglasses. O'Brien This is not a hero in the sense of action movies. So I have to disagree Aussie also domesticate no longer had to Kay O'Brien, because it have a never a "wolf" has been. Jokingly could one - to continue the metaphor - laid up short at the mustache, which he has taken in the prologue to full beard. But back to the point: Only a tiny proportion of HERO is filled with what is the action film its name with action. The few scenes in which Norris presents his martial arts, not even something to do with the main plot effect and as subsequently glued to vex the fans not completely. HERO but not completely deny his genre. It is almost like a rebirth, when the murder machine O'Brien Moon in the showdown grabs and throws through the roof of the cinema in the death. can, not least because it seems like a belated echo of the finale of Silent Rage , but also because this seemingly strengthened a heroic figure to rise, which was previously trapped in psychological discord. In this respect, HERO is a real bastard: On the one hand, he makes to the man and machines and people in the middle eighties (to Simon Moon with his impressive physique reminded) of space for more realistic characters, on the other hand, meets this substitution no other purpose than the heroes through the back door re-established. to let O'Brien / Norris return completely and definitively in the bosom of the family, which has director fir then not yet married.
A: It is this "Vereindeutlichung is it that can not function in a complex world that has become just the world, the HERO stands, and within the modern cinema. The non-functionality of the extremes that have found already in the film noir in resolution of logical good / evil dichotomies, more simply, the One has always been a part of the other had in it, is here taken into a new dimension. Therefore, it is simply not true that O'Brien only to the wolf must be, but he is shown with his "wolf-like" behavior already in the prologue to be defective. The defectiveness Moons, which actually represents the extreme of society injurious element is obvious to the recipient, as nacherfahrbar. But even in the "animal-like" over-subscription of the figure reflects, as mentioned by Stefan, nor a logically thinking being. That to really develop new HERO, a late 80s for the typical experiment, the "family-friendly murder movie," is that at the beginning, the typical figure Norris with her fail in the past highly successful behavior. The company no longer required for silent loners, regulating the things themselves, because they do not address the things. You are the Other (Moon) with their behavior namely, to come close and thus it differs no more. The fanaticism O'Brien, of which the killer is not dissimilar leaves him when she at the beginning of the film hiding Moons approaching, two warnings of his colleagues, but to get better gain ignore. O'Brien wants to pull in its own way and acts like we know the Norris-figures, but he fails. Not because it would have been lacking in resolution, but because the world in HERO now demands more than just "top picks" (or would if we believe the advertising slogan of another make). The physical examination Moons and O'Brien culminates in an appropriately involuntarily comic ending, which fortunately O'Brien decides for itself. If we Norris' characters look in intertextual relation, then we recognize the educational change from the government's back periodic personal frustrations on enemy territory emotion and loners ( MISSING IN ACTION ) over which the government recurrent back, but the home on own ground defense loner (Invasion USA), which the government at the beginning back in slow motion, but then again in the military community re-integrating quasi-solitary ( DELTA FORCE ), to the sudden merging with the former enemy, with him even a family be founded lone-father (BRADDOCK - MISSING IN ACTION III). In HERO now clear at the outset that the supposed hero must do more than is necessary in earlier times. The lack of empathy with the enemy will only lead to a traumatic intrusion, O'Brien has to put the Moon in himself and he can only sums which he had previously denigrated. The merger with the other, which is already indicated in the third part of MISSING IN ACTION is in the final battle with Moon to a 
absorption. Moon can not use him the resources available, but O'Brien is growing beyond and puts the wolf thus finally from. could track down - it absorbs "evil" and not kill Moon, as he is physically superior to him as of old, but because he as a profiler - he had to think only in the building structure. Finally he throws Moon through a roof window and can finally have a family.
STEFAN: The two of you mentioned "head" in the finale, with its "overcoming" the offender shall be defeated for good, reminds me of a beautiful structure interpretation that has Terry Eagelton once thought, and when he was a fairy tale on the base shown in his story up-down dichotomies has analyzed. Especially in relation to the metaphorical ambiguity of "head" in reference to the story in HERO and in relation to the moral "differences in height" of good and evil in the serial killer film can trace a meta-narrative of the serial killer movie. I did this once fairly profitable performed on Edward Dmytryk THE SNIPER , which deals on the image plane also always a matter of removing perpetrators and victims to the same level. This of course only depicts what is actually always unrepresentable: the desire for social, sexual and emotional balance. This can be attributed to Silent Rage use as well as on HERO: In the latter also are always scenes to see the show, like Moon climbs a ladder up or down, as O'Brien looks up to a hole in the ceiling and finally, like Moon on the floor of the facts (just of the "normal") is conveyed back. In contrast to THE SNIPER is this "normal" but already damaged self: O'Brien is not a "normal citizen", but a kind of "Normopath" that ousted his conflicts, relationship and is unable to accept his role can not (strictly speaking, can he was not with his success, Moon ever taken to have around). This kind of "normalcy" seems to be the status quo and she's also shown a much more differentiated than the other "pure figures" of action movies. If I can in this knowledge now to conclude my consideration also involve that Moon just not in some buildings, lives, murder and eventually dies, but in a movie theater, then the structural analysis of a discourse of media communication of violence, normality (or heteronormativity of traditional cinematic), and media construction of reality transmitted, reflected quite critical of what we suggested the movie and genre history.
FH: If you look at the face of this stunning interpretative possibilities now realizes that we are dealing here with a Cannon movie, is striking how inconsistent the whole film in itself, and even be able by penetrating authenticity and inauthenticity - not always intentionally, as it seems - and HERO at the end make similar obscure and labyrinthine as it is reminiscent of a cinema unconscious Moons. Their location in the action film, the director fir can never quite put (or should) provide the subtext in the film actually consistently developed, ultimately, a leg - even me, who am I wrong track in my interpretation of something previously. Aussie has his comments on the wolf-O'Brien and its incarnation, is entirely right: O'Brien Moon can overcome only after he has made his own shortcomings, or - for the structuralist interpretation coming back - after he learned the rules of "his" movie, which in this case, for him, Norris, is entirely new. The evolution of the classic action hero, but less explicitly visible as it is implicitly read. It is the figure Moons and the design of the finale, which can ultimately HERO left behind his own insights into the structures of the body and stressed action film: The elimination of the killer is primarily a show of strength. No wonder, but Moon - His rogue colleagues from around CITY COBRA or Silent Rage similar - especially the body and thus a representative of a film genre that HERO has actually left behind. The time was 1988 not ready for HERO: In 1990, the now heavily damaged, with its workhorse Cannon Norris back on old familiar ground. DELTA FORCE 2: THE COLOMBIAN CONNECTION seems even more reductionist as Norris' films from the pre-HERO-phase. That the attempt to redefine failed, can be also seen from the fact that Billy Drago there again was allowed to play the villain cliché without any human emotion, after he was in against the HERO Stroke was cast as a psychiatrist.
A: Exactly. This development is in the following films have taken to the extreme when it actually only comes to Chuck Norris and the characters that he plays really boost mythological. In HITMAN he returns to second prolonged clinical death back to life and then another. In HELL BOUND he lies down as a police officer with Lucifer himself, and in FOREST WARRIOR he eventually becomes a mind that flits through the forest. Very interesting, I think even mentioned by Stefan maintaining a status quo. This symmetry thought to be in the action genre often represented by conservatism and the fact to achieve a balance state in which each crime must be balanced by a deed. This is one of the reasons why the villain in the action genre in the end often perish by an explosion. What he did to many others, is now a thousand times back at him. The compensation it must necessarily mean "tear to shreds". At this point I would like to thank Stefan very much for cooperation. He has enriched our discussion over and through his extensive knowledge about the limits shown such a blog. Sorry we could not go into everything in detail, one or the other readers but perhaps a couple of interesting food for thought given.
STEFAN: I have to thank! For the serial killer movie of the 1980s in my research have been somewhat under-represented. The main reason is that film-serial killer was at that time represented primarily by the so-called "slasher". The not too many "real" serial killer films (ie those in which the offender is not a supernatural monster), gesäät are rare. Because it surprised me twice that you could come up with five film specimens are also still in the genre of action movies. The serial killer movie itself is not a genre but is a progressive, continuous strand of discourse in the history of various Film genres. find him represented in the action film of the 1980s in this way, has confirmed some of my key messages and opens a very enriching perspective for me. One of the traditional start of the serial killer movie to topoi besipielsweise shows a steady Verundeutlichung between good and evil, perpetrators and investigators - both morally and in psychopathological terms. That all five films discussed here more than clearly demonstrated. Also brings the film serial killer here (s) a solid inventory of representational conventions in the history of film with which you can see in the movies discussed in rare purity, starting with the staging of the offender and his acts as a "scandal of reason" to formal aesthetic modes of representation, narrative clichés and double encodings (including the self-reflexivity, as we have seen in HERO). One comes to me whole new perspective on the serial killer film produces mainly from the confrontation with the perpetrator of the movie action hero: Here we see depictions of the body, as in the serial killer film previously found only very rarely in such clarity. The "battle" between good / evil, the / n culminates in these movies (especially those with Chuck Norris) in an explicitness that makes even the simplest viewers mind clear about what a danger it is in the film serial killer is - this is so not only for the threat of the individual but for an entire threat scenario that is directed against modernity itself, and through him in the truest sense of the term "embodied," as the action hero of all the purity, power and accuracy of that tries to embody modernity, against the serial killer turns the principle. The fact that the heroes often mentally and / or physically, without prejudice to emerge from this confrontation, shows how intelligent the action here, serial killer movies viewed on the sub-or meta-level actually are.
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