Hero

PS Mithran was one director who showed immense promise when he came with his debut venture Irumbu Thirai that showed the seriousness of the way we carelessly handled our data privacy. His new venture Hero starring Sivakarthikeyan is a highly diluted spoon-fed social preach that has only the shadow of the man who created Irumbu Thirai. Ironically today is the anniversary of the movie Taare Zameen Par and I got to saw this big-budget movie that in a way showed the greatness of the Aamir Khan movie which also focused on the same topic.

Sakthi is our hero who as a child wanted to become a superhero like Shakthiman. But life was never easy on him and he eventually became a broker in the education sector and he also made fake documents and certificates for people. The movie takes a sharp turn when Sakthi tries to get an admission for this girl in his neighborhood who couldn’t get toper like marks in the exam but was a truly innovative mind. His efforts to get her an admission without any kind of bribing make him realize what all crooked things are happening in this sector and the movie is about his response to it.

So I hope most people will be clear about the fact that the movie’s aim is to expose the flaws in our education system, like the way Mithran exposed the data thing in Irumbu Thirai. The problem is that the treatment felt like PS Mithran wrote only the story and asked Pandiraj to handle the script and making. Pandiraj is the man who created Sivakarthikeyan’s last hit Namma Veettu Pillai which was basically a Photostat of Pandiraj’s own family melodrama Kadaikkutty Singam. I do understand the fact that nuanced subtle presentation has no place in mainstream Tamil cinema, but the disappointment is huge here because Mithran was one guy who seemed like he will make it happen through his films. The dialogues of the villain even after having social relevance falls flat simply because of the way the movie underestimates the basic intelligence of the viewer.

There was a scene towards the end of the movie where our Hero Mask appears on TV and asks the parents to look at the rough books of their kids to know their real talents. It’s a thought I personally admired and in my head, I was saying “Please don’t make all the parents stand up and go to their kid’s room right away to check the rough book Mithraa…” and PS Mithran was in no mood to accept my request. Every parent barges into the rooms of their kids and hugs them seeing their various talents. If Sundar C had done this scene this way, I would have considered it an improvement. But a promising guy like Mithran underestimating the intelligence of the audience feels painful. And one more thing that bothered me at the end was that the writing credit was shared by 4 or 5 people including the director. George C Williams’ frames occasionally get a chance to portray the grandeur of a superhero film and he did it neatly. The edits were also pretty effective. The bike chase towards the end was done very impressively.  The background score from Yuvan Shankar Raja was good while the songs didn’t really make much of an impact within the narrative.

Sivakarthikeyan is in his usual hero mode here with comedy, romance, and anger. There is nothing in particular in terms of effort he has done for this movie. The debut film of Kalyani Priyadarshan in Tamil becomes a forgettable one for her in terms of screen time. Her acting needs refinement as the energy level of the dubbing and acting had a serious mismatch. Abhay Deol might have committed this project only for the sake of money as it asks him to do nothing in terms of serious acting. Action King Arjun plays the role of the mentor and Mithran makes sure that his fans will get to see him in action. Actress Ivana as Mathi showed great potential. Elango, Robo Shankar, Azhagam Perumal, etc are the other main actors in the cast.

In Hero, the good guys are extremely naïve and the bad folks are caricatures. I remember a particular scene from Irumbu Thirai becoming viral on the social media platforms without mentioning the fact that it was from a movie. That was because of the quality of the making of that scene from writing to visualizing. I can confidently say that even after being a relevant theme-based film, Hero won’t be able to achieve that.  

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