Rocky Handsome Movie Review: Only For John Abraham Loyalists

John Abraham and Nishikant Kamat had teamed up for the first time to come up with Force, the remake of a South flick and after liking the film, we naturally anticipated that the duo will come up with another hit with Rocky Handsome, which is the remake of a Korean flick.

However, unfortunately, the 'forceful' duo fumbled the ball this time rather clumsily, much to our disappointment.

Set in Goa, Rocky Handsome stars John Abraham as Kabir Ahlawat, a mysterious man with a violent past, who runs a pawn shop and leads a solitary life in the Sunshine State. When a little girl named Naomi (staying in the same building as him, with whom he has forged a reluctant bond), gets kidnapped by members of the drug mafia, they soon realize that they have messed with the wrong dude.

For Kabir is not an ordinary pawn-shop owner, but a former government covert operative, who is as deadly as a heart attack. Soon, Kevin Fereira (Nishikant Kamat), the drug lord and officers of the Anti-Narcotics Department find themselves hopelessly outmatched when trying to deal with a killing machine on their turf.

How Rocky (Kabir's code-name) manages to save the day forms the rest of the plot…

The Korean flick The Man From Nowhere was a decent action flick, but its Indian version doesn't even come close. Except for the unarmed combat sequences (especially the knife-fighting scenes), the film has nothing really to boast about. John has just a couple of expressions in his kitty, which he brings out when he is not flexing his impressive muscles. The film surely deserved an action star, who can also emote (hint- a certain Khiladi) to pull off this role.

The little girl who plays Naomi (Diya Chalwad) is cute enough, though her dialogue delivery is way off and her chemistry with Kabir is not something that can bring a lump to your throat or make you go 'awww' (John compared his chemistry with the little one with the chemistry between Salman Khan and Harshaali Malhotra in Bajrangi Bhaijaan and we strongly disagree!) Sharad Kelkar as a cop trying to do the right thing is decent enough while Shruti Haasan has a blink-and-miss role.

Nishikant Kamat makes his acting debut in this film and his character will remind you of the baddies you saw in action films of the 80s era. In the climax scene, when his men are getting bumped off, his character is seen emptying all his cash and diamonds from a locker into a suitcase before attempting an escape (The last time I saw a villain doing this was when Amitabh Bachchan was a young man).

Like mentioned earlier, the action sequences are quite slick and Kamat has certainly pushed the envelope as far as that department is concerned. Had Kamat given the same attention to the screenplay, the characterizations and the dialogues, the film might have ended up being a decent rip-off. But the predictable storyline, the below average dialogues and the caricaturish characters, might surely prove to be the film's undoing, notwithstanding the awesome action scenes.

All in all, Rocky Handsome comes across as a film trying too hard to be 'ohh-so-cool'.