There’s nothing honourable about honour killing. But it makes for a terrific story especially when the intention is to weave a genial love story around a serious issue.
In parts, reminiscent of Priyadarshan’s Rangrezz, Heropanti is an unabashedly straight and sentimental launchpad for Tiger Shroff. And he excels in every department.
The narrative gets to the point straight away with conversational elan. It’s a gaudy bustling wedding in Haryana where we meet a family of unapologetic ruffians posing as aristocrats.
Director Sabbir Khan, whose debut film Kambakkht Ishq gave a new definition to designer-filmmaking, is far more in control of his plot this time. He brings his city-bred protagonist Bablu (yes, that’s the name of the debutant hero) out of the gym straight into the rugged hinterland of Haryana, where elopement is a dirty word.
The narrative is structured with ample room for conventional elements of formula filmmaking to spill over without causing an excessive deluge of distractions. While the first movement of the plot is baggy and limp around the edges with some of the intended humorous encounters between Bablu and the chirpy Dimpy (she’s the sister of an eloped girl from a conservative family, played by newcomer Kriti Sanon, all set to repeat the family’s disgrace) falling flat on the face, the second movement packs in a rock-solid punch —and I mean that, literally.
Shroff may look like a soft gentle romantic hero but when push comes to shove (as it often does in the gun-toting badland), he delivers a mean punch. Whether jumping from building to building or wooing the girl with corny courtship lines, there is an easy-going unflappable attitude to this debutant’s persona, as though to say, there is much more to the film than just flamboyant machismo.
As the story progresses we see Bablu blend almost miraculously into the girl’s hostile family — a la Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. (How cleverly writer Sanjeev Dutta has subverted the DDLJ plot).
Prakash Raj taking up Amrish Puri’s position of the bride’s father in this tale of forbidden love is outstanding in his display of possessive rage and the gradual meltdown.
But this is Shroff’s big ticket — he emotes, he dances and yes, he can fight besides sharing good on-screen chemistry with his co-star Sanon.
Director Sabbir Khan gives the all-rounder hero a curvaceous storyline to peg his skills.
Sanon is perky and sufficiently spontaneous for her first film. I had a problem with her dangerously low-waist ghagras (Indian long skirts) which just didn’t go with her ultra-conservative family life where falling in love and elopement are punishable by death.
Sajid Nadiadwala’s Heropanti is a complete entertainer even though it doesn’t quite measure up to the requirements of the theme of honour killing that it so valiantly puts forward.
