Movie review 'Heropanti' : Kick. Punch. Smile. Repeat

Cast: Tiger Shroff, Kriti Sanon, Prakash Raj

Director: Sabbir Khan

Rating: 1.5 stars

Welcome to Jattland. No, it’s not a term I’ve just coined. They actually call it that in the film. Geographically, ‘Heropant’i is set in Haryana, somewhere around the town of Rohtak. The milieu, as we all know, is seeped in patriarchy, regression, honour killing, wife beating --- the list very much resembles the news headlines we see everyday. In fact one of the characters sums it up neatly, ‘Yeh Jattland hai. Yahan toh do bacchon ke baat biwi ka naam puchtey hai.’
 
In this land resides Bablu (Tiger Shroff) who is kidnapped by the local goon Chaudhary (Prakash Raj) after his daughter Renu (Sandeepa Dhar) eloped with her lover on her wedding day. Chaudhary hopes to get some leads of his daughter’s whereabouts from Tiger who is a close friend of her lover. So he keeps Tiger and his friends locked in the shed of his massive estate until they are able to extract more information.

Meanwhile, Tiger falls in love with a random girl he sees in the woods. Let’s not get into how that happens. But she happens to be Chaudhary’s younger daughter, Dimpy (Kriti Sanon) and he doesn’t know this. During his stay in the shed, the two correspond through a strategically placed window in the basement from where he can only see her waist and not her face. ‘Main kamar se baat nahi karta, chehra dikhao’, he says. But they do a lot of talking and a bit of embracing in the dark, to plot how they are going to search for Renu.
 
Many many twists in the tale follow but we keep getting distracted by Tiger’s pink lipstick that bears an uncanny resemblance to Kriti’s. For the most part, he looks like a smooth alabaster statue, chiseled of course, perhaps a bit too much. And he’s so pink, you even expect him to bleed pink. But that’s the only illogical thing that doesn’t happen in the film. Stunts are clearly his comfort zone and he is outstanding there. But it’s pretty much kick, punch, smile, repeat for him.

And when he runs out of things to say, he mouths the catchphrase of the film, ‘Sabko aati nahi, aur meri jaati nahi’ to define his 'heropanti'. Towards the end, in what seems like the 1000th rerun of this line, you wish you grew some of his muscles just to shut him up. But that is obviously the dialogue writer’s fault.

For his part, Tiger is a confident debutant, although his dialogue delivery is too plastic even to make fun of it. But he can dance, and that helps. A lot. Kriti’s performance is full of conviction and she does complete justice to the ludicrous character she plays. The music is catchy but the background score of the Hero-ic whistle seems overdone after a point.
 
Let’s talk of the chemistry now. There are two kinds of them. One between Tiger and Kriti, which may remind you of a lesbian love story (I’m sorry) and the other is between Prakash Raj and him. The latter has more conviction.

The turnaround of Prakash’s character is in keeping with the senseless plot. There’s this one scene, where he gets sloshed and is wailing for his missing daughter. Then he looks at Tiger in the eye and says, “Kya dikhta hai Dimpy ko tum mein jo mujhe nahi dikhta”. It’s probably the most unintentionally hilarious moments in the film.
 
There are many more to keep you occupied. In fact, over all, one might be confused if director Sabbir Khan intended to make a spoof or a film. Go for it, if you are in the mood for cheap thrills.