Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Jaideep Ahlawat, Harsh Chhaya, Neeraj Madhav, Gautam Joglekar, Vaquar Shaikh, Sumit Singh, Praveen Rao, Special appearances: Akshay Kumar, Malaika Arora and Nora Fatehi
Director: Anirudh Iyer
Language: Hindi
It’s one thing to be an action superstar in Bollywood and a different ball game altogether to be on the run from a powerful, trigger-happy, vendetta-seeking Haryanvi politician. Maanav (Ayushmann Khurrana) in An Action Hero discovers the difference between on-screen stunts and real-world combat when he accidentally kills a man and flees to Europe in panic, only to find himself hunted by the dead fellow’s brother (Jaideep Ahlawat). Much to the surprise of both men, there are others too hot on Maanav’s heels.
Abandoned by the world that once adored him, Maanav must use his wits, his physical strength and years of training for cinema to outwit his pursuers, convince the public of his innocence, and win back the life he had worked so hard to get for himself.
An Action Hero’s story is written by its debutant director Anirudh Iyer, while the screenplay and dialogues are by Neeraj Yadav. Together they have fashioned an outlandish dark action comedy from the premise, adding a sprinkle of police-politician ties in Haryana and a truckload of the news media’s eccentricities into the mix.
Don’t go looking for character arcs or too many profundities here. With no pretensions to being deep, yet without insulting viewer intelligence, by giving us little time to think between twists, shootouts and chases, An Action Hero– edited by Ninad Khanolkar – ends up being a fun package. It dips post-interval but picks up again with a brief observation on the lengths to which the ego will drive a human being and a tongue-in-cheek take on Bollywood’s underworld connections. All this is tied in with an Ayushmann at the top of his game, and crackerjack chemistry between him and Jaideep.
It’s a good thing that the narrative’s drooping minutes don’t last long, because it is in those minutes that, even more than the improbabilities in the script, the glaring absence of women from the scene becomes impossible to ignore. It takes a singular level of dedication to male dominance to create films without any woman character in the storyline. Not a single one, unless you count the peanut shells thrown our way in the form of Malaika Arora and Nora Fatehi’s song ‘n’ dance appearances, and a young AD who appears for a few seconds early on.
One of Indian cinema’s all-time lows on this front came last year with Raj B. Shetty’s widely acclaimed Kannada film Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana, which did not feature any primary, secondary or tertiary woman character. GGVV’s erasure of women was shocking. Sadly, An Action Hero is not far behind. It is depressing to think that skilled filmmakers don’t notice how they do not notice the existence or acknowledge the significance of 50 per cent of the human population in their cinema.
Of skills, Anirudh Iyer has plenty. It helps that Ayushmann gets into Maanav’s skin with such conviction and swag, not overdoing his starry airs, hitting the bull’s eye with his self-confidence and pulling off the fight scenes with panache. An Action Hero leaves loose ends hanging and questions unanswered, but the adrenaline rush its protagonist offers helps the narrative gloss over its own flaws.
After the #BoycottBollywood hashtags trended on social media for almost three years, this film is written as a sort of redemption for the industry, gently reminding us of the attractiveness of stories in which the big guys are the bad guys. However, it is careful not to get mawkish about this point to the extent of overshadowing its intended overall lightness.
That said, An Action Hero is terribly unimaginative in its portrayal of Hindi TV news. At first the in-your-face mimicry of well-known anchors is amusing to watch, ranging as it does from a screaming Arnab Goswami clone to a bearded quasi-intellectual to an imperious-looking, shameless TRP hound. But then we are served more of the same thing. Then some more. And more again. Once you have tapped these clowns for laughs, you have to tap your imagination for a new idea. An Action Hero does not, and the repetition gets boring pretty soon.
The music of the film (with multiple credits) is a good fit in the script, hummable albeit not outstanding. There has been some criticism of the decision to remix Biddu’s iconic Aap jaisa koi seared into our collective memory by Nazia Hassan singing for Zeenat Aman in the 1980 Bollywood blockbuster Qurbani. This is not a formulaic choice as has been the assumption by its critics who, quite understandably, are tired of Bollywood rejigging its own old hits and borrowing stories from other Indian film industries instead of coming up with original works. In this case, however, the ’80s-ness of the number, the memory of Qurbani and the landscape of Mumbai in that decade are all relevant to the inclusion of Aap jaisa koi.
Apart from Ayushmann, Jaideep and Harsh Chhaya as Maanav’s manager, none of the other actors in An Action Hero leaves a mark. Blame that on the limited characterisation that leaves talents like Neeraj Madhav with hardly anything to sink their teeth into.
Film industries across the world have repeatedly examined the personal lives of screen legends and those around them. Biopics, fictional actors with double lives, a stuntperson fighting crime in their spare time, artistes who must use their artistic abilities to combat real-world problems have all been explored in various ways in films and series. What An Action Hero brings to the table is a desi-fied blend of star mania, murder, netas, crime lords and an actor in full flow.
Ayushmann has had an uneven 2022 so far with Anek and Doctor G. An Action Hero is an excellent showcase for him. He revels in the silliness that the script sometimes throws his way, but cleverly makes silly look serious. Even when the film lags, Ayushmann does not.
Rating: 2.75 (out of 5 stars)
An Action Hero is in theatres
Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial
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