High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Too Late the Hero is a 1970 Anglo-American war film directed by Robert Aldrich, and starring Michael Caine, Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Ken Takakura, Denholm Elliott, Ian Bannen, Lance Percival, Ronald Fraser, Harry Andrews and Percy Herbert. In the 1942 Pacific War part of World War II, Lieutenant Sam Lawson, U.S.N. (Robertson), is a Japanese language interpreter who ? so far ? has avoided combat. Although Lawson is slated for shore leave in forty-eight hours, his commanding officer (Henry Fonda in a cameo role) unexpectedly cancels his leave and informs Lawson that he is to be assigned to a British infantry commando unit in the New Hebrides Islands for a combat mission.