The Curse of Miscasting

I watched a film last night called Hero Wanted. I’m hoping you haven’t seen it or know anything about it because I want you to take a little test.

Put your casting director’s hat on.

Now, the plot is fairly twisty-turny but follows certain must-haves of the action-drama genre. There’s the protagonist who’s basically a nobody at the start but then ends up in a violent showdown gun battle with a gang of bank robbers at the end.

The hard drinking protagonist’s name is Liam Case. His brother Dylan is dead, and when we see the cemetery scene we also see his mother’s name was Marie. The woman in his life is named Kayla McQueen.

Although it’s never overt, you get the feeling Liam’s the good Irish Catholic type when he says the Lord’s Prayer before heading off for the final showdown.

This is after Liam’s learned the shooting and killing ropes from his dear old dead dad’s best friend, Gill. Gill has an English accent so I was picking him as former SAS.

Now, with these story points in mind who would you pick to play Liam?

I was watching the film and thinking: “This was written for Colin Farrell. Only it’s so badly directed he wouldn’t have had a bar of it.”

It was just a little too by-the-numbers to attract Farrell, I think. I posed the question to a workmate who suggested maybe Ben Affleck or Matt Damon?

In fact, the closest he got to the truth was when he jokingly suggested Jackie Chan.

Liam Case was played by Cuba Gooding Jr.

He tried. Oh God he tried to show that he’s got an Oscar at home. But what are you to do with a story that’s so blatantly written for someone else? Well, maybe change a few character names for a start.

Bring in a director who has a knack for telling a story. And a real vision; not just some vague semblance of an idea of how to set up a confusing end-of-story shootout.

So, if you want to watch a severely badly miscast film; try to find Hero Wanted. The title is oddly appropriate.