Cacique-Borja Yunuen, True Hero.

True Hero

The concept of heroism has been around since the Greek and Roman period. The way heroes have been interpreted as has changed with the course in time. Heroes have been portrayed as demigods, individuals from another planet to a little boy in a Batman suit with leukemia. In either interpretation the individual has embarked into an event in a selfless manner. The movie Hanover Street directed by Peter Hyams brings to life yet another interpretation of the highly esteemed word hero. The film set in World War II London is partly a love story and partly an action film. The first part is a love story carried out by Harrison Ford as Lieutenant David Halloran, an American Air Force pilot assigned to bombing Germany evaded parts of the United Kingdom, and Lesley Anne Down as Margaret Sellinger an English nurse. The two quickly fall in love shortly after their first encounter, dramatically changing them and forcing them to view life in a different manner. Halloran begins to feel less lonely and more afraid when embarking bombing missions and Margaret begins to lead a double life.

 Amidst their internal chaos, the second part of the film begins; Halloran is assigned to fly a British spy into German evaded Britain. Unknown to Halloran the spy is Paul Sellinger, Margaret Sellinger husband. Due to complications in the mission, both Halloran and Sellinger end up embarking on the mission together. Here, Sellinger tells Halloran that he is a hero for being part of the air force. Sellinger views him as a hero for embarking on a dangerous mission. As they continue the journey together and get to know each other more and more Sellinger tells Halloran that he is also brave after Halloran confesses to Sellinger that he is scared. Sellinger characterizes fear as a key component in bravery. The journey is action packed with World War II fighting scenes that do justice to the Americans and just like any other American movie of WWII both Halloran and Sellinger return safely with spy information about the Germans. Upon their return Margaret finds out that both her husband and her lover had been on a mission together. Distraught but with a sense of justice Halloran tells Margaret that they can no longer continue their affair and that her husband is a good man.

Halloran ends up being a hero in both parts of the film. He is a hero romantically because he gives up Margaret and doesn’t make her chose and he is a hero at war because as Sellinger described, he embarked on a dangerous mission with the thought of fear hanging over him. In a way Sellinger also becomes a hero for being able to obtain the spy documents of Germany but Sellinger does something that Halloran does not do which is try to prove to someone he is a hero. The films of Harrison Ford by Pfeiffer lee also describe young Ford as a hero for being the star actor in Hyams movie after the director’s stars had withdrawn.