Some Kind of Hero (1982) * * *

 

Directed by:  Michael Pressman

Starring:  Richard Pryor, Margot Kidder, Ray Sharkey, Lynne Moody, Ronny Cox, Paul Benjamin, Olivia Cole

Corporal Eddie Keller (Pryor) spent five years in a Vietnamese POW camp only to return home to be initially hailed as a hero, but then is screwed over by bureaucratic red tape and that he signed a "confession" to the Viet Cong in an attempt to save his cellmate's life.   Upon his return to the States, and all during his romantic reunion with his wife, Keller learns his wife has fallen in love with someone else, has a child he never met, his business is bankrupt, and his mother had a stroke and is about to thrown out of the assisted-living facility where she stays if her medical bills aren't paid within a week.

Keller is soon forgotten after the cameras stop documenting his return and now he must adjust to real life again.   He befriends and soon falls in love with an expensive Beverly Hills hooker (Kidder) and plots a robbery to pay off his mother's bills and get out from under.   Pryor is, of course, a legendary comedian, but his stand-up act which plays to his personal pain makes him a natural dramatic actor.   In Some Kind of Hero, he plays both comedy and drama with equal adeptness, which carries the movie and its frequent tone switches. 

Some Kind of Hero also captures an era in history in which Vietnam veterans weren't treated as heroes or even decently.   People tended to forget that most soldiers were drafted and did not ask to be part of such an unpopular war.   Eddie Keller sure didn't wish to be a POW and further didn't desire to be put into a position where he must to sign a confession denouncing his country.  Some Kind of Hero may not always see through, but it sees enough and understands what it's seeing, and it rings with a certain truth.