Wannabe Hero

Hero (1983)

Hero (2015)

Cast:                                                                                Cast:

Jackie Shroff as Jackie Dada / Jaikishan	Sooraj Pancholi as Sooraj
Meenakshi Sheshadri as Radha Mathur	Athiya Shetty as Radha Mathur
Sanjeev Kumar as Damodar Mathur	Sharad Kelkar as Sharad Mathur
Shammi Kapoor as Retd. IGP Shrikanth Mathur	Tigmanshu Dhulia as IGP Shrikanth Mathur
Amrish Puri as Pasha	Aditya Pancholi as Pasha
Shakti Kapoor as Jimmy Thapa	Vivan Bhatena as Prince Rannvijay Shekhawat
Bindu as Jamuna (Radha's widowed aunt)

Irrespective of the million jokes about Bollywood, I proudly call myself a Bollywood buff. So it goes without saying that this weekend would be booked for Hero, remake of Subhash Ghai's hit (in all reality, it is not a cult film) of the same name.

Let's start with the good parts. Sooraj Pancholi & Athiya Shetty are good additions to the lot of star kids. Both have potential, which you may not see in this debut film. But sparks show in a few emotional scenes. The music is officially part of my new playlist. Thankfully, we do not have a scheming, loud aunt in the new avatar. And the 'better than the best' part is Salman Khan crooning Main hoon hero tera during the end credits.

Now for the not so good parts. In one word, everything else.

When you remake a film, you are not only supposed to push the timeline forward but also fill the gaps of logic in the original. But if you intend to make a film that adds more gaps, I request you to leave the original alone. Or else, be prepared to be compared (hmm! I could use that somewhere as a cheesy punchline.)

I can understand Subhash Ghai agreeing to hand over the rights, what with his fame limited to a film school & remake royalties (I am choosing to ignore his recent 'adoption' of Radhe Maa). But he should have also handed over the logic of the plot that runs deeper than giving the male lead character the original name of the debut actor.

For starters, Nikhil Advani took on a task when he decided to recast legends like Shammi Kapoor, Amrish Puri & Sanjeev Kumar. It is an understatement to call their shoes too big to fill. Instead we have Tigmanshu Dhulia, Aditya Pancholi & Sharad Kelkar, respectively. Dhulia does make a commendable effort as the grieving father who can't compromise on his responsibilities as an officer. But when you look back on the stature of Shammi Kapoor, Dhulia falls short, literally. Aditya Pancholi looks sauve as Pasha. But that is not what the plot needs. We need to believe that this man is a dangerous criminal & Dhulia's character, IG Mathur is right in putting him behind the bars. Instead, we see a lot of good side to this goon. Morality vs crime, that formed the basis of the original, is completely missing from the remake. In fact, we see IG Mathur loosing cool in a manner that makes Pasha look more civil. Any hints of criminal activities that have been given for Pasha are so flimsy that we have nothing more than IG Mathur's word to believe that Pasha is a dangerous goon. As for Sharad Kelkar in the role of the bumbling bee inspector & the supportive brother, he looks good, acts well, but lacks the humour of Sanjeev Kumar.

Now for the lead pair - Sooraj Pancholi & Athiya Shetty. Since the leading lady is called Radha in both the versions, we will call them RadhaM (Meenakshi Sheshadri) & RadhaA (Athiya Shetty) for convenience.

Both the debutants show potential in the two emotional scenes (yes, it was that limited that we could count it on our fingers). But we wish there was more scope for them to act & emote. Pancholi needs to get out of the shadow of Salman Khan & be himself. Jackie Shroff did not need to pull off his shirt & flex muscles for us to root for him or for RadhaM to fall in love. Unfortunately, that is all Pancholi does, along with a dance face-off & a punch in a night club, for RadhaA to go weak in the knees & mumble "he's so hot". The love logic is as weak as the original where RadhaM falls in love because Jackie can play the flute. I mean, it is only in the boring, real world that we need to know if the person is a good human being or not. Athiya Shetty, for her part, tries hard. But never looks the damsel in distress. With her height & body structure she would be more suited to play a Lara Croft than a chiffon clad, running in the snow girl. I really hope she chooses better the next time.

So we have a stubborn RadhaA who misbehaves, abuses & takes selfies. Question: why does a stubborn child always have to be a brat? I'm a stubborn kid but I don't go around abusing or looking down on people. So, don't understand the logic. And we have a gunda with a golden heart (read another rendition of Robin Hood) who distributes money to help the needy. Again question: So it's cool to hit people, till you give away a part of your earnings to social causes?

And this is just the beginning of missing logics!

Jackie goes to threaten IG Mathur & plans to kidnap RadhaM to create more pressure. Sooraj is told by Pasha to kidnap RadhaA. Till now Jackie has more grey cells than Sooraj, who comes forth as nothing more than Pasha's man-friday. Jackie's friends pretend to be dacoits & Jackie, in the garb of a police officer, saves RadhaM. Sooraj & his friends simply stop RadhaA in the middle of the road, give her a cock & bull story about danger and take her away. Brownie points to RadhaA for calling her dad, as opposed to RadhaM who believed Jackie only because of his uniform. But the new age IG Mathur is more of Kunti. What will a man be more concerned about - his daugther-in-law's labour pains or his daughter trying to confirm whether he actually sent a team to whisk her away to safety? Aka Kunti, all he has to say is "jo wo keh rahe hain waisa karo," and the daughter sashays away with the fake cops.

Jackie had a backstory that gave us solid reason for why & how he became Pasha's right hand man. All Sooraj has to his credit is that Pasha considered his mother a sister & brought up Sooraj after her death. Not convincing enough if you are working for a criminal.

No changes to the love story or the gunda trying to reform for love. But it is too long. Or maybe it's just me. I mean how much of crying & muscle flexing can you take before it gets too much! 

And then enters the third problem in the love story - elder brother's friend as the fake fiance but who actually falls in love & tries to create havoc. When Shakti Kapoor steps in as Jimmy & faces Jackie, you already know who's the winner. Shakti Kapoor looks the eternal bad guy. So, of course, we want Jackie to get the girl. But when Vivan Bhatena steps in as Prince Rannvijay Shekhawat & faces Sooraj, he is equally good looking & charming, in fact, at times more. And has a great physique as well, which is all it took RadhaA to fall madly in love. So we don't see any logic for why Sooraj will win in the end, except being forced to believe the weak subplot that Prince Rannvijay Shekhawat gambles & owes a lot of money to Pasha, which makes him the bad guy. Towards the end, Shakti Kapoor also loses because he has a case file against him, proving him to be a smuggler. Poor Vivan Bhatena gets a bullet in the back for trying to hit Sooraj. Is there something wrong with our 2015 IG Mathur? You just saw your preferred would-be son-in-law get beaten up by the guy you hate. And all it took was 10 minutes of badly written lines for you to have a change of heart? So no real proof that Bhatena is the bad guy but it's time to bring the film to an end (thankfully) so let's just believe the other guy.

To Jackie's credit, he makes a genuine effort to speak to IG Mathur & propose marriage. It is only after IG Mathur insults him that he takes to self-destruction. All Sooraj does is leave RadhaA with her father with a melodramatic line. We never really see him pine for his love; his pain on losing RadhaA. Also, Jackie did not need pages of monologues to convince the father. His actions were enough. Our RadhaA never falls in enough trouble for Sooraj to prove himself, and thus, the dialogue writer gets ample opportunity. You got to justify the paycheck!

Two star kids launched. And they have real potential. But we hope to see them making better movie choices rather than remain in the shadow of their Godfather. Heck, even their Godfather has good acting roles to his credit without any need for muscle show. So next time take a cue from those instead of advertising gym membership & giving a bad name to Bollywood heroines.