Hit Attack

‘Heart Attack’: This is Puri Jagannadh meets Nithiin movie. Clearly focussed at attracting a committed viewership, the script may wander but does not loose purpose. Backed up by good team work, the crew adds a high professional value to the film.

Heart attack can be perceived as a willingness (if not boldness) with the protagonist who is a drifter and who wears his stance against matrimony on his sleeve. Unlike the heroes who either love their women or hate them, Varun (Nithiin) woes without pretending to be in love. Somewhere you see this as a cinematic extension of the images of Ranbir and Shahid in Bollywood. Therefore the protagonist is a step forward in a mind-set that often fights hard to tred away from the familiar feudal lords and male chauvinists.

Varun by character is different. He is, however, yet a Puri Jagannadh creation. Thus, he is romantic, can fight the goons as they come, dance spiritedly and belt melodies every quarter of an hour. He is smitten in Spain by Hayati (Adah Sharma) who is visiting her friend Priya (Kesha) –the daughter of ISCON Ramana (Brahmanandam). The film’s prologue has a set of goons trafficking and peddling and when caught torturing a police man on the sea shores of Goa. Hayati after the initial hesitation falls in love with Varun who is not just commitment phobic but believes that people and relationships are needless baggage in the life of a drifter. However, he realises his love after he has lost his love interest to the peddler and trafficker Makarand (Vikram Jeet).

Nithiin doubtlessly is the main stay of the film. With back to back hits and the arrival at the Puri Jagannadh camp, he clearly announces that he is no longer star material. He is star. The placement of violence over what could have been an acceptable take on a drifter realising the need for roots is sadly lost. The director who dares to raise the issue unfortunately falls prey to the stereotype of Tollywood. Infact, Nithiin as the lover boy who evolves from a drifter to a lovelorn character is a picture of credibility. If only, the director had taken the script on that plain and eschewed the temptation of the formulistic milestones! The Spain to Goa trip would have made for wonderful viewing. Not so, simply because it is because Puri Jagannadh. The cinematography and the music add value to the narration. Now that Adah Shah has made her debut, she can surely afford to go to an acting school and pick up the basics. Nothing is pointedly warranted to be stated about the others in the cast.

It is a film that is entertaining very often and yet hollow in the sense that it is an opportunity lost at the doorstep of predictability. In a world where even the successful are unwilling to bite the bullet it is indeed a sad reflection of commerce of our cinema that perceptions of box office rule the creative abilities of the filmmaker. The audience need to be taken more seriously by the filmmaker. Someone surely will make the beginning. This could have well been that start and the tragedy is that it is not.