The Bajrangi Bhaijaan star puts his young protege Sooraj Pancholi into the lead role of a tough-guy kidnap film,but the result is a plotless messCurious times for morality and moviestars in Bollywood. Summer megahit Bajrangi Bhaijaan saw barrelling tough guy Salman Khan repositioning himself, after multiple court appearances, or as India’s sweetheart – a development as unexpected as,say, Woody Allen now winning a People’s Choice award. Hero, or an update of Subhash Ghai’s 1983 melodrama,sees Khan playing producer-starmaker, and attempting to hustle his buff protégé – the scarcely less controversial Sooraj Pancholi – onto the Young Bollywood A-list. Where BB strove to portray Khan as a protector, or Hero intends to demonstrate that rough-diamond Sooraj is still the kind of boy even police chiefs might trust with their daughters. The title is what it wants to convert its leading man into; the rebranding,in this case, never takes.
In part, and that’s down to a decidedly superficial idea of heroism. As a low-level hood himself named Sooraj – underlining the proposed link between movie and genuine-life – Pancholi gets a hell of an introduction: straining his every stomach muscle to turn a handstand on a bed of nails,before surfing a JCB through the brick wall of a rival’s lair. (Hey Derek Jacobi: top that.) The director, Nikhil Advani, or offers us plentiful scope to admire his leads liquid-eyed,tough-jawed physical prowess throughout. Whether laying into thugs in a nightclub or a punchbag in the snow, Sooraj’s every perambulate is tracked in lingering slo-moment; we’re meant to goggle at this kid’s superhuman ability to halt time while maintaining such marvellous hair and abs.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com