Rocky Handsome (2016) Review!!!

Synopsis – When a drug mafia abducts an eight-year old, her dearest man sets out on a mission with a view of returning the compliment.

My Take – After producing two successful excellent films (Vicky Donor & Madras Cafe), John Abraham reunites for this third venture with his director of Force, Nishikant Kamat, who is also fresh of a hit from Drishiyam (Hindi version). A remake of the very successful South Korean thriller The Man From Nowhere (2010), this film proves even that even with an official remake tag attached to it a non engaging screenplay is enough to make a film fall like a bunch of dominoes. Having seen the original, I must say the story is pretty average with nothing new to offer, but somehow with a crispier script and likable performances director Jeong-beom Lee (the director of TMFN) ended up making the film one of the biggest South Korean cinema. But here, the complicated plot is sluggishly narrated and tackily rendered, the humor forced, the Goa setting convenient and lazy, and the villains just too buffoonish to be menacing. The overall slickness of the original and the sharply edited and beautifully lensed blood-letting are completely missing in the flat Hindi translation. The story follows a hefty pawnshop owner, referred to as Handsome (John Abraham). Plagued by the memory of his dead pregnant wife (Shruti Hassan), the loner’s only friend in the world is a doting young girl next door Naomi (Diya Chalwad), whose mother Anna (Nathalia Kaur) is a pole dancer, drug addict and thief who doesn’t care a hoot for her daughter. Anna and her boy friend set events in motion when they steal a stash of drugs from the club she works at and tries to sell it in the open market. When Kevin (Nishikant Kamat), a drug dealer and organ trader who operates various cartels along with his ridiculously psychotic brother, Luke (Teddy Maurya) track down the person who stole their drugs, they kidnap both Anna and Naomi with the aim of reclaiming their loot, selling Anna’s organs on the black market and handing over Naomi to a child trafficker (Suhasini Mulay). Thus inviting a fate worse than death.

While the film starts on a slow pace and then remains dotted with harsh and barbaric and brutal murders, the director tightly etches the second half. It is gripping and the mayhem continues in full force. Till the last scene, it boggles the mind and makes you cringe every now and then. Director Kamat’s ability to turn a good original film into a credible remake was surprise in his last film Drishyam, but with this film it is a solid proof that Bollywood can ruin even the most straightforward of remakes. There are stereotypes galore, deafening background music and lots of blood and gore. There are certain scenes in the film which add to the cringe worthy moment category —the sudden rainfall as John runs to save the child, the manner in which he survives even after being hurled by bullets and takes it out on his own, the way ANC officers send an email to Barack Obama from John‘s email ID in order to get his background details – which could have been avoided or toned down to make the film more real. Like his last film, Nishikant brings in tricky ATM withdrawals and draws a sequence reflecting how children are exploited by traffickers in their drug businesses which looks complicated and stretched and even gets confusing to an extent. The focus should have been more on the emotional story and less on action which sadly does not happen. Certain parts also could have been avoided and the violence almost gets into the nerves. John Abraham‘s flimsy backstory doesn’t work. The minute you see the first glimpse of Shruti Haasan, you know what her fate will be in the film. Let’s not say it in as many words but the predictable plot of the film makes it difficult to invest in it whole-heartedly. Well, that’s a lesson Mr Kamat needs to learn before moving on to his next. Unlike, the original there are multiple songs in the film, which are weirdly placed around the film. Especially Rock the party – the club song – which is actually quite stunning thanks to the beats and the presence of the graceful and sexy Nora Fatehi, keeps cutting in and out during an action sequence. People were complaining about the darkness and brooding atmosphere of Batman v Superman all week, wait till they get a hold of this film as it suffers in a similiar fashion. The moment when Handsome’s real identity is revealed is tepid and underlines the emotional vacuousness of the script. Largely forsaking script and performance, Kamat depends on the action scenes, which are too obviously choreographed. Yet, the movie’s highlights are three action sequences that have been faithfully replicated from the original. Hamstrung by local censorship laws, this has had to trim back the ultra violence that marks South Korean crime dramas¸ but at least the movie comes to life when the death count is ticking. It’s a pity that the survivors are not as interesting as the corpses. What surely works for this film, besides the high-octane action and murderous rampage by John and the baddies, is its cinematography.

Shanker Raman chisels every scene finely and audience can’t help but remain glued to the screen. Performance-wise, it is John Abraham all the way. Though his expressions are same throughout the film, he carries the film with his well-defined sculpted body and good performance. Director Kamat seems to acknowledge his leading man’s limits. He stays away from the lead-like face and focuses on his rippling muscles, giving him next to no dialogue (Abraham utters around 10 lines in the two-hour film) and populating the movie with so many outlandish characters and plot lines that Abraham’s catatonic state might be more appealing to the viewer. After showcasing his acting caliber in the widely underrated and unnoticed 404: Error Not Found (2011), Nishikant Kamat gives a mixed performance here. Sporting a bald look and French beard, he intelligently gets into the character of the bad guy by witching between hamming and ease. When a director opts to act in his own movie, he ought to ensure he has absolute control on at least one, if not both, of those skills. Here, Nishikant Kamat casts himself as a one-tone bad guy and forsakes restraint in both his departments. Similarly, Teddy Maurya as Kevin’s brother, Luke Pereira, makes you truly hate the character. You actually feel relieved when he dies a brutal death. The other villain, Kazu Tang steals the show with his fighting skills, though acting-wise he didn’t offer much. Strangely, in his supporting role, Sharad Kelkar as Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) officer Sanjay Khapre somehow seems to be stuck in a similiar kind of roles with the same feel and expressions. The child actor Divya Chalwad does justice to her role. Nathalia Kaur is not bad. Shruti Hassan is wasted in a special appearance. On the whole, ‘Rocky Handsome’ could have been treat for action lovers but the overshadowing lazy script ends up being a spoil sport thereby making this film a let down! I would rather watch John Wick (2014) instead.