Hero : Reviews and Box Office thread

Hero Movie Review

A Fairy Tale Far From Reality

Hero is among the most awaited movies of Bollywood this year, which is a remake of a Subhash Ghai 1983 film with the same title starring Jackie Shroff. In fact, the classic film of eighties was the debut of Jackie in B Town unlike the way this remake is for Sooraj Pancholi and Athiya Shetty. The film has therefore two novices who are opening their career in B Town with Hero, which is directed by Nikhil Advani, while it is produced by Salman Khan along with Subash Ghai. The music comes from a slew of people including Meet Brothers, Sachin-Jigar and Amaal Malik. Now, let's look deep into the film to get the gist of the same.

Story/Plot

Sooraj is a gangster with the same name from Mumbai who get the chance to meet Radha played by Athiya Shetty who is the daughter of Police Chief. He then approaches Radha posing herself to be an inspector to take her to some other place, later she realises that she was kidnapped by none other than a person who is a gangster. However, amidst all hue and cries along with the tantrums of a Police chief daughter love blossoms and rest is history. So, what happens when a boy and girl of different statuses come together with love? The two worlds simply collide, while the two are seen struck in a whirlpool of an intense kind of love story for which they can do anything. In other words, it is a story of love under confrontation, but how will the love prevail is an interesting question to find answer, which will be found out once you catch the film.

Script Analysis

As far as the script is concerned, there is hardly any change in the base story of the film unlike seen in the 1983 classic. However, the difference is the age the two movies are made one goes before the communication era, while the other is made in the era of smartphone and internet. So, you can feel the difference in the two yet the comparison with the older one seems futile. As Hero of 1983 is considered to be among the classics of Bollywood, which I doubt can happen with the newly released one. There are too many loops and vacuums in the film, which remains unfulfilled and addressed. Frankly, the script sounds boring a bit when the film starts and with passage of time gains momentum. Yet the amount of time it takes is long and would thus give too many loo breaks to the audience.

Star Performance

The lead actors of the film - Sooraj Pancholi and Athiya Shetty playing the characters of Sooraj and Athiya respectively are making debut with this movie, hence expecting much from the two would be rather unfair. Honestly speaking, the duo seemed lagging behind many ways and would need a couple of movies and diligence to prove their worth over the silver screen. Though Sooraj seemed cute but the look of a gangster seemed missing, which was vividly seen in the case of Jackie Shroff in the classic of 1983. A gangster with a look, who has been raised in the merciless streets of Bombay, seemed unrealistic making it appear like a fairy tale. Similar was the story of Athiya who remained lagging behind in many ways. However, for Sooraj, it was interesting to catch certain action sequences in the film; the bare body of the actor can prove out to be lucrative to some extent.

Music, locations, screenplay, direction and technical stuff

As far as the music of the film is concerned, overall the songs seems cool and some of them are raising high over the chartbuster list. The title song by Salman Khan seemed rocking as people could hardly believe how soothing Salman Khan can sing. The film will certainly give a good boost in terms of music. Now, talking about the direction, it seemed okay, but considering the fact that the film has two newbie in it, you cannot expect much from the director to portray the things the best. As far as the locations are concerned, these seemed okay and similar is the story with the technical aspects like screenplay, editing and other elements.

Hero - The Last Word

In a film of love and confrontation, with two novices in the lead role is hard to digest. With too much of expectation with the film and actors working in it, the film though managed to get a good promotion in the media, but seems lagging behind in many ways. However, remove all the expectations and buzz around the film owing the presence of Salman Khan and his brand, you can find the film to be okay in perspective of novices. So, the only issue that is seen doing the damage is the over expectations. Yet it can prove out to be a worthy film to catch for the youngsters who hardly know anything about the cult classic of 1983.

Rating - 3.0

http://www.justbollywood.in/hero-movie-review/

DIRECTOR: Nikhil Advani
STARRING: Sooraj Pancholi, Athiya Shetty, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Kader Khan, Aditya Pancholi, Sharad Kelkar
RATING: 1.5 stars

Watching Hero is like refreshing your Facebook timeline, hoping for a like or a comment. Except nothing happens. The movie moves from one bizarre scene to the other making you realise that those Candy Crush invites are NOT the most irritating thing in the world.

But let me start with a confession. I really wanted this film to work for both the newcomers. They look so earnest, nervous and so dreamy eyed while promoting the film. I genuinely wished the film worked for them, so I went with 5 stars for the movie in my head, most of which I kept losing with every minute of the film.

The movie starts with a jigsaw puzzle where the hero's waxed torso, his bulging biceps, his shampooed hair, his face-washed stubble, his pointless tattoos all come together to reveal a full blown, muscular Sooraj. His entry causes a mini earthquake. The bottles on the table start shaking and falling as he enters. Wow, yeh hero hain ya Jurassic Park ka Tyrannosaurus Rex. Along with the bottles, the first star falls and leaves it to a 4 star.

This is followed by a fight, a club song and a scene where he saves Radha-on-the-dance-floor-Shetty from the zor-zabardasti of her ex-boyfriend. And soon we are transported to the good old 1980s and its gheesa-pita filmy formulae. I was so waiting for a Kanoon ko apne haath mein mat lo' or Main tumhare bachche ki maa banne wali hoon.' Alas, it never happened. Another star stripped!!

Hero educates us how to celebrate Valentine's Day: hold hands, look into each other's eyes and kiss your beloved's lips. Alas, it's only big talk no action'. Even the scars on hero's face after a gruesome fight look like lipstick marks instead of blood, alas, without any kissing. Sometimes it's the lead pair that deprives us of a hearty kiss, sometimes it's their fathers. I kid you not, in an intense scene Tigmanshu Dhulia comes so close to Aditya Pancholi that you cringe they might kiss. Thankfully, it all ends up in dialoguebaazi and sweet nothings being whispered into Aditya's ears.

Even the characterisation doesn't work. The hero is too metrosexual to be a goon and the heroine too ditsy to be IG's daughter. She thinks she is protected by police except the man who kidnaps her is too six-packed to be a Mumbai cop. She thinks eating non-vegetarian food is gandi baat and that her love life is in trouble because she broke her god promise by downing a few tangdi kebabs. Err wait, how old are you really? Five? No, two!! Just like the star rating of the review right now.

But it's a Hindi film and I am ready to suspend all logic. So I buy that the lead pair falls in love because the hero is shirtless and the heroine is hormonal. I smile when the hero wants to start a shareefo wali zindagi. He can be a gym trainer. So he starts his own gym!! I don't even complain when the hero dodges a bullet full matrix Rajinikanth style. But meet heroine's father. He is an IG, the no-nonsense police officer. He is told Radha beti has forgotten Sooraj and is dating MBA type Ranvijay. He happily agrees without doing any check on Ranvijay, who is a criminal too. You should know better. You are a POLICE OFFICER. I wanted to strip off all his glorious stars, but I settled for another half star of this review.

It really breaks my heart that the newcomers couldn't really pack a punch in their first movie. Sooraj-I-took-my-acting-classes-in-Gold-Gym looks like Gautam Gulati's body double. Look close, he even smiles like him. The character he plays is like a grown up Darsheel Safari. He doesn't sing ma, he tattoos it. But full points to him on building a great body. He looks good, is earnest and I hope he gets better with time.

Athiya-mere-pappa-anna-hain-Shetty is beautiful and a shade more confident than Sooraj. Her dialogue delivery though reminded me of Shaina NC on Times Now: lots of words and no feelings. But it's not her fault. The character was badly written!!

Vivan-Preeti-Sabarwal's-dumped-boyfriend-in-Chak-De-India-Bhatenda as Ranvijay is a revelation. Despite getting a character that comes from nowhere in the second half, the man manages to play it well. He plays Ranvijay with a certain sense of ease, wickedness and confidence that comes with time and experience.

Bad writing, poor direction and average performances make Hero forgettable. Hope Nikhil Advani redeems himself next weekend with Katti Batti!!

WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN:

5 stars: Loved it. (This could make to top ten movies you must watch before you die!)
4 stars: Liked it. Recommend it. (This will help you sound intellectual and give you stuff to add at water cooler conversations.)
3 stars: Didn't hurt. Watch it once.
2 stars: It put me to sleep. Watch it if you are an insomniac or a newly wedded couple. Winks!
1 star: Do I even need to explain this?

http://www.masala.com/movie-review-hero-203593.html