Sunday 4 October 2015

Film Review - Hero

 

Stalk Home Syndrome

Film: Hero
Cast: Sooraj Pancholi, Athiya Shetty,Tigmanshu Dhulia,  Aditya Pancholi
Directed by: Nikhil Advani
Duration: 2 hrs 10 mins
Rating: * *

Hero is a remake of the super hit Subhash Ghai which launched the career of Jackie Shroff and made Meenakshi Sheshadri popular. It was also the last enjoyable film made by the director who was once dubbed as the showman.

Now apart from launching new ‘stars’ these remakes actually serve no purpose. To begin with, the filmmakers don’t have enough grounds to believe that they will better or even come close matching the original.  So if that is the case, why bother in the first place? From the marketing perspective, it helps that Salman Khan is associated with it but that doesn’t contribute to the film itself. 

The story if you haven’t seen the original is about Sooraj (Sooraj Pancholi) a goon is the one of the most threatening name in town – his grand entry looks like a fitness demo and pity that he looks as if he is still in college and appears least bit intimidating. He even manages to beat a rather bulky man who is about a foot taller than him to pulp.  

Aditya Pancholi plays Pasha, a criminal who is in jail and unless the top cop (Tigmanshu Dhulia) relents, he might be there for a long time. So the goon comes up with the grand plan to kidnapping the cop’s daughter Radha (Athiya Shetty) and no prizes for guessing that Sooraj is entrusted with the job.

Just to make sure that we don’t mistake the young man for an ordinary thug, he is also shown giving instructions to his friends and partners in crime to distribute money among the needy.

Radha mistakes her kidnapping as a security measure and during their stay in the snow capped mountains, cupid strikes.  And so do the oddities. For a girl who can’t resist one of the most the dreadful phenomenon known to mankind in the 21st century, also known as selfies,  she lives without a phone  without too many qualms about it.

In the initial bits, you can at least sit through it because the the story is getting established. The slide as the film progresses is very rapid and even though this is not a long film by conventional standards, it gets all too tedious with the introduction of a prospective beau for Radha.

There is not effort to re-tell the story in a different fashion – on the contrary there is a significant intent to play to the gallery. There are so many shots in slow motion which increases the running length of the film. Plus there are countless pointless songs since the plot gets stagnant at some point. 

Tigmanshu Dhulia and Sharad Kelkar as the father and brother are serviceable. The new lead pair is miscast, especially Sooraj Pancholi. The braqwn is fine but at best, he appears more like supporting character material while Athiya is passable – neither commendable nor condemnable.

Hero ultimately belongs to the also-ran category.
 

Published in The Navhind Times on 13th Sept. 2015
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