Home Video: 'The Hero'

The Hero (Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD) is a custom-tailored celebration of the career of actor Sam Elliott. This one is for you if you watch The Big Lebowski at least a couple times a year or if you turn up the volume on your TV whenever you hear his unmistakable voice in a Dodge RAM or Coors commercial.

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In The Hero, he plays Lee Hayden, an aging cowboy actor who pays the rent by doing voiceovers for barbecue sauce commercials. He's divorced from his artist wife (played by Elliott's real-life wife Katharine Ross, The Graduate and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)  and he's estranged from his daughter Lucy (Krysten Ritter, Jessica Jones and Breaking Bad) and spends a lot of time smoking weed with Jeremy Frost, the former co-star of his signature western TV series (Nick Offerman, Parks and Recreation and Fargo).

Lee meets the hot young standup comic Charlotte Dylan (Laura Prepon, That '70s Show and Orange is the New Black) when she comes to buy weed from Jeremy. They embark on a spiky romance even though Charlotte's more than 30 years younger than Lee.

Plus he's got the cancer.

An off-the-wall speech at the ceremony for a smalltime life achievement award goes viral and America remembers how much it loves Lee Hayden. He gets a shot at a role in a sci-fi blockbuster and has a chance to jumpstart a faded career.

The whole movie is pretty slight but you're watching it to enjoy Sam play a version of himself in a movie written by people who think he's awesome. If that sounds like something that would interest you, check it out.