Imagine a country led by people who consider themselves racially superior to other nations, a country where the most popular document is a pamphlet advocating violent grabbing of an entire continent, a country that wages aggressive wars of conquest against their neighbors and subjects millions of people to genocide and slavery. Some might recognize the Third Reich in the description above. Others, who like to learn their history from sources other than Hollywood films, could easily recognize the United States of America in the first half of the 19th Century. Until most recently, few people could accept this vision of the USA, mostly because the global domination of American pop culture conditioned the world to view the USA through more recent incarnations based on WW2 and the Cold War - as a benign superpower with a mission to promote liberty, democracy, human rights, and world peace. So, it could be said that One Man's Hero, a 1999 period drama directed by Lance Hool, is a film that appeared at least five years too late. Today, when the world sees George W. Bush and the USA in the same way the world used to see Adolf Hitler and Germany, this film is more likely to be in tune with global sentiment.
The protagonists of the film are Irish immigrants who came to America in the 1840s, fleeing the potato famine, poverty, and British oppression. In predominantly Protestant USA, they are subjected to anti-Catholic bias, and many of them see military service as the only way to escape it and prove loyalty to their new country. One of them, John Riley (played by Tom Berenger), earned the rank of Sergeant and the respect of his superiors. As the USA prepares to go to war with Mexico, many Irish soldiers are stationed in Texas. The Catholic faith they share with Mexicans is the reason why bigoted Protestant officers start to see them as potential traitors. Riley, like many of his men, can't endure suspicions and humiliations and decides to desert and flee into Mexico. When the war between the USA and Mexico finally erupts, many Irish deserters decide to take the Mexican side and protect their new country from their former comrades. They form the San Patricio Battalion, a unit that would take part in many important battles of the Mexican-American War.
Simply because of the way it increased American territory in a spectacular fashion, the Mexican-American War is among the most important events in American history. But Hollywood – an institution situated in the territory that became American during this event - ignored it for a whole range of reasons. So, it isn't surprising that One Man's Hero, one of the rare films to deal with this topic, was financed by Spanish and Mexican companies. The film had a fascinating subject and a very capable cast. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a spectacular historical drama about bigotry, patriotism, and shifting loyalties turned into a lame and not particularly attractive combination of cheap melodrama, western clichés, and "political correctness". The viewers are going to learn very little about the reasons for the war and why Mexicans lost. Milton S. Gelman's script condenses many important events to conform to the 90 minutes of running time. The acting in the film is solid, but many actors struggle with poorly written and cliche-ridden roles. Especially irritating is the way the writers used the rivalry between US generals Zachary Taylor (played by James Gammon) and Winfield Scott (played by Patrick Bergin) to turn the latter into a psychopathic monster. Not attractive enough to be a historical spectacle and not informative enough to be a history lesson, One Man's Hero is a wasted opportunity.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on July 14th, 2004)
Check out the trailer here.
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