Harrison Ford and The Fonz Teamed Up In This Underrated Road Trip Comedy on Netflix

It is hard to overstate just how significant “The Fonz” was in American popular culture, as Henry Winkler’s beloved performance on the sitcom Happy Days became so successful that it eclipsed nearly every other character on the series. An issue that many actors who attain fame thanks to a role in an acclaimed television show face is being typecast; Winkler tried to break into the film industry to prove that Fonzie was not the only character that he was capable of playing. Winkler gave a surprisingly earnest performance as a Vietnam War veteran in the underrated road trip dramedy Heroes, which also featured a standout role from Harrison Ford in his first film released after the success of Star Wars.

What Is ‘Heroes’ About?

Set in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Heroes stars Winkler as the amnesiac veteran Jack Dunne, who is detained at a facility so that his mental health issues can be studied. Jack quickly finds that the doctors aren’t willing to listen to what he has to say about the trauma that he experienced overseas, and decides to break out on a mission to reach Northern California, where he intends to start a worm farm. Along the way, Jack ends up joining forces with Carol Bell (Sally Field), who is skeptical about her impending marriage. However, Jack’s real goal is to find the men from his unit that he served with, and ensure that they have all found a new trajectory in the aftermath of their shared trauma. Ford appears as Ken Boyd, a charismatic stick car driver who immediately agrees to help Jack and Carol identify the other “brothers in arms” that they have lost sight of.

The simplistic structure of Heroes allows the film to get deeper within the characters, as the notion of a “road trip adventure” has been a formula that has been used ever since the Golden Age of Hollywood. While the narrative itself may not provide all that many surprises, the opening is quite successful in showing the pressure that is put on Jack. Jack begins to understand that despite the best intentions of the medical professionals that are caring for him, staying in a facility where he is constantly reminded of the pain that was inflicted upon him isn’t going to help him heal. Although he has still not entirely recovered from the trauma of serving in Vietnam, Jack recognizes that finding a new goal will allow him to invest his intentions elsewhere. There was certainly a lot of pressure put on Winkler, as this was his first opportunity to show a more dramatic side of his abilities. Although he would later return to comedy thanks to a string of studio films in the 1980s, Heroes indicated that he has a real talent for more serious subject material; blending comedy and drama, as he does in Heroes, offered a preview of his career best performance in the HBO series Barry.

‘Heroes’ Was a Groundbreaking Depiction of PTSD

Heroes features impressive performances from a cast that recognized the serious nature of the material, but were still able to hit the comedic notes necessary to make the film so broadly appealing. Field’s role is surprisingly well-written, as Carol faces an issue shared by many women of her generation, as they often had to serve as nurturing figures to returning veterans that were deprived of meaningful experiences in their youth. Ford gives an early sign that he was equally talented at comedy as he was at drama, as Ken serves as the film’s greatest scene-stealer. Although his strange interest in racing adds a ton of laughs, it is heartwarming to see how quickly Ken responds to the idea of helping one of his former servicemen.

Heroes was different from many of the other post-Vietnam films that addressed veteran’s issues, as it was willing to paint them in a positive light. Although films like The Deer Hunter and Coming Home were powerful examinations of trauma, Heroes took note of the fact that enough men had served in the war that they deserved to see stories in which they got to become reacclimated to average life. Heroes may not have lit the box office on fire, but it was a charming adventure that was made all the more entertaining thanks to the terrific work from both Winkler and Ford.

Heroes is streaming on Netflix in the United States.

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