Hero Movie Review: Not A Heroic Attempt

Way back in 1983, Subhash Ghai had made Jackie Shroff an overnight success by casting him in his film Hero, a love story between a criminal and the daughter of a cop, who is kidnapped by the former. In 2015, Salman Khan hoped to recreate the same magic with a remake of the film starring Sooraj Pancholi and Athiya Shetty, but we must say that the Bhaijaan could not do the same for his protégés.

Sooraj plays 'Sooraj Baba', a toughie who works for Pasha (Aditya Pancholi), a criminal-politician, who is facing trial for the murder of a journalist. In order to bear pressure on Inspector General Mathur (Tigmanshu Dhulia), Pasha orders Sooraj and his band of merry men to pretend to be cops and kidnap Radha (Athiya Shetty), the daughter of Mathur.

The loyal Sooraj kidnaps Radha by pretending to be her security officer taking her away from Pasha's men and while hiding out in the snow-capped regions of North India, promptly falls in love with his kidnap victim, who reciprocates his feelings.

Radha convinces Sooraj to surrender and atone for his sins, but despite this, IG Mathur does not give his stamp of approval, leading to more and more complications. How Sooraj manages to get Radha and save the day for everyone concerned forms the rest of the plot.

Sooraj, who makes his debut with this film, is blessed with a ripped body, but the lad lacks the rugged and easy charm that our Jaggu Dada had in spades even as a lanky newcomer. Moreover, Sooraj has that 'wannabe metrosexual' air to him, which makes it tough for him to pull off the 'street goon' role with conviction. Athiya Shetty comes across as a poor man's version of Sonam Kapoor and though she is confident enough, her dialogue delivery and her lack of charm proves to be her undoing.

Tigmanshu Dhulia is a great actor, something that we discovered after watching Gangs Of Wasseypur, but it was indeed bad casting in this case as Dhulia, with his grey stubble and disheveled hair, looks too scruffy to be an Inspector General of Police. Surprisingly, Vivan Bhatena is quite delightful as the cheerfully wicked Ranvijay while Aditya Pancholi puts in an earnest effort as Pasha.

Nikhil Advani, who had earned my respect and admiration with D-Day, fumbles the ball this time with a weak screenplay and a clichéd and predictable tale. If that was not all, the dialogues are laughably childish (In one scene, Athiya promises God that she will give up 'bad things' like eating non-veg if the injured Sooraj recovers…beat that!)

The music of the film is not too memorable apart from Salman's rendition of the title track, which comes during the end credits. The action scenes are decent enough, but not something that will make you say 'Wow!'

In conclusion, the theory that remakes are not as good as originals is proved to be true in this case too…