Producer- G P Vijayakumar

Director- Diphan

Cast- Prithviraj, Anoop Menon, Srikanth, Yami Gautam, Thalaivasal Vijay etc.

Music- Gopi Sundar

Review By : Unni R Nair/ Kerala9.com

Two questions that we need to ask ourselves, after we had seen Diphan’s Prithviraj starrer ‘Hero’:

• What did I expect out of the film?
• Why is it that ‘Hero’ is not as big a crowd-puller as Diphan’s earlier ‘Puthiya Mugham’?

Find honest, realistic answers to these questions and you get a review- your own review- of ‘Hero’.

Lemme begin with my answers to these questions….

Well, to be honest, I expected ‘Hero’ to be almost what it is. Of course I did expect it to be a bit more fast, crisp and a bit different.

Why ‘Hero’ is not as big a crowd-puller as ‘Puthiya Mugham’ is something that we got to ponder on. Maybe the new kind of films that are made these days- like ’22 Female Kottayam’, ‘Diamond Necklace’, ‘Ordinary’ etc- lead the audience to expect Diphan and Prithviraj to deliver something on those lines. Or maybe Diphan failed to work out the subject the way it should have been worked out? Some flaws have come in, which if avoided, could have made the film much better.

‘Hero’ tells the story of fight-artists who work in films. The film takes off with Dharmarajan Master (Thalaivasal Vijay), who has retired from films as a stunt artist, worrying about how to get his daughter married off. His wife advises him to go meet director Adityan (Anoop Menon), who is going to make a new film. Adityan, who shares a good bond with Dharmarajan, agrees to let him compose one fight in the film, though he had already committed the work to Uday (Bala), who is Dharmarajan’s nephew and disciple. Adityan asks Dharmarajan to use Uday’s assistants and Dharmarajan goes to Uday to discuss that. But Uday doesn’t cooperate and even insults him. It’s then that Dharmarajan, who is left with no options now, goes and meets Antony (Prithviraj), now known as Tarzan Antony, whom he had sent away long back and who has now forgotten all about films and works more like a goonda and lives in a slum. Antony at first refuses, though politely and with all due respect to his guru, but then he later agrees. Thus Antony makes a comeback, performing an action sequence for the hero of the film, Premanand (Srikanth), who is Adityan’s friend and also a poor actor. (Premanand is also the son of the State Home Minister). From here the story takes off and moves of course on predictable lines.

As for me, I expected the film to move on predictable lines and I don’t see that as a negative thing, if that doesn’t get in the way of my enjoying a film. I wanted and expected to see Prithviraj fighting, dancing and playing to the masses and that’s what ‘Hero’ is.

But then, there are things that I didn’t like about the film. Let me list them out (Diphan, my dear friend, please excuse me, this is my job!)

• The introduction of the hero, isn’t it old fashioned and a bit overdone?
• The songs, most of them seem to be choreographed in a similar manner, with the hero dancing almost the same way in all. The songs too are quite unimpressive.
• The last fight, it just goes on and on and on.
• Premanand, it’s said, is scared of fights and can’t do them on films without stunt-artists and dupes. Then how does he manage to fight so great with Antony in real, in the climax?

The rest of the film is of course not bad; I enjoyed it, except the above-said things and I feel that if it had been a bit more crisp and these aspects taken care of, ‘Hero’ would have been a real good mass movie.

Performance

Prithviraj suits the role of Tarzan Antony and he does justice to the role. Thalaivasal Vijay and Anoop Menon score in their respective roles while Srikanth plays his part satisfactorily. The heroine Yami Gautam is just about OK. All the others fit into their respective roles. Bala’s character just vanishes at one stage, but he does fit into his role perfectly well.

Technical aspects

The technical aspects are all in tune with the mood and the tempo, but we do feel that the film could have been chopped a bit more at the editing table and if so, it would have been better.

Music

The songs are not at all impressive. Gone are the days when people would love to hear and applaud for songs like ‘Tarzan Antony, coming back to cinema…”. The songs are all almost similar and picturised almost similarly.

Script

Vinod Guruvayoor, who has done the script, should have done it in a better manner. As of now, there are many loose ends. If he had taken care of that, the film would have been better.

Direction

Not bad Diphan, but the film could definitely have been better. The kind of packaging that had gone into the making of ‘Puthiya Mugham’ should have been adopted here and if so, ‘Hero’ would have been much better. So, better luck next time!

Verdict:  It’s what you want it to be; not bad, but could have been much better

Rating: 2.5/5