Long Gone Heroes
Long Gone Heroes
Long Gone Heroes: After abandoning everything: country, religion and even hope, a special forces soldier has to come back to action in order to find his niece, who happens to be a journalist who got tangentially involved in the black subcontracting that went wrong.
Venezuela’s destabilized political situation makes it a perfect backdrop for a political action film. There have been such troubles in that country that the US government issues travel warnings to its citizens. Hence, it provides a cover of political violence and moral decadence, yet remains believable. Long Gone Heroes makes use of that and manages to deliver a coherent plot without offending any politics. It is an uncomplicated plot: good people enter a war torn country to rescue a hostage. It’s pretty good actually.
Still, for these kinds of low-budget action-ristical films, I find myself totally at loss as to what I am in for. They span varieties from absolutely nonsensical to surprisingly vibrant paced. Considering the topic, I’d never call Long Gone Heroes joy……… but close – it is incredibly engaging. Gunner (Frank Grillo) and his team of “heroes” are sent on a mission to rescue a Senator’s daughter who got kidnapped by some. They carry out the rescue attempt but it becomes complicated when she refuses to leave without enabling other hostages kidnapped within the same building to escape. This is a very simple story with ‘la la la’ and ‘wa wa wa’ progressions and developments, but it is executed nicely. With standard character introductions that include characters set to music and then slowly narrated character traits, we do not get that. This is how they are. They are introduced to new people as needed in the narrative, this is done quite suddenly.
Review of Long Gone Heroes
Frank Grillo has adapted well as an action lead in these lower-budget films. But such an ‘A’ has never been achingly obvious because this man has to get into an action franchise by the scruff of the neck. Gunner is impressive by the fact that no matter what the case is, he is was always in the thick of it, never shaking in the face of danger. He seems to be some person out of a heroic action movie. Josh Hutcherson also seems to be getting into the practice of stealing the scenes in these sorts of action-y supporting roles. It’s a stereotype and label that is given to him but he more than just ousts the rivalry across the borders. His role to any lesser actor would be rather bland than uneventful, although not as ostentatious as his Beekeeper guise earlier this season.
Like most such films, there are a few of these that instead of being integral to the film are merely blink and miss-cameo roles despite such actors being splashed all over the posters. Melissa Leo plays the Senator whose kidnapped daughter is an important character. Again, she has very little to do except for bookends of the movie that she starred in as Judy Mauser. Garcia, Andy is criminally wasted as the antagonist Roman, who is barely given a couple of scenes to flourish. Mostly he is in the typical bad-g guy mode and since he is great, I wished to see more of him. In addition, Mekhi Phifer also plays a short but important role as Moreao, a wacko who does not believe in leaving any witnesses behind. Even though these actors do not have a huge amount of time on screen, the filmmakers manage to keep them active in a way that explains this absence. This keeps some of the cliches that indie films tend to go (especially these geezer teasers) where the actor was clearly on screen for a day and gave zero f***s about the film.
Filmmakers do not seem to have overused CGI for this film where most of the action scenes are shot very closely. Main explosions are almost always real and scenes that would typically be CGI are shockingly practical. Fire stunts are done in the movie and they don’t use CGI for it, which I feel only enhances the realism of the film. It helps in distinguishing it from the rest of the action films, which generally take the easy way out and use too much CGI. On the other hand, the action gun-play in this film never gets to that next stage, and is simply about brief shooting and continuing on to the next set. That would be pretty much the same as “rinse and repeat.”
This makes it John Swab’s writer/director and Grillo’s fifth film together. They obviously enjoy these action films and working with each other and have become quite skilled in that. What has been done to these people on screen has some degree of brilliance in it. The movie does tend to spin off several times, and so it was possible to get in a lot more than was needed for the story. No, I would say even that makes the world more real, so we get to know these characters and more ordinary times as well.
I think this makes it in a way work for the side characters. Beau Knapp and George Carroll have some very good scenes which make this mercenary world alive.
I must say, I did have fun playing the Long Gone Heroes. The storyline is basic yet instantly creates a strong feeling of wanting to see revenge being taken. The violence does not get too overboard but the immersive approach that most of the action is real and shot with traditional camera angles is refreshing. Even though the plot is awfully weak and predictable, I still had some fun with the group of mercenaries. We need more such movies where the objective is to present an interesting ethical story and actions are just a part of it. Is it really that hard?
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