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By Joginder Tuteja, December 23, 2008 - 16:55 IST
MOVIE DETAILS
Cast: Salman Khan, Preity Zinta, Mithun Chakraborty, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Dino Morea, Sohail Khan, Vatsal Seth, Ria Sen, Amrita Arora
Director: Samir Karnik
Producer: Samir Karnik, Bharat Shah, Vikas Kapoor
Music: Sajid-Wajid, Monty Sharma
Lyrics: Jalees Sherwani, Rahul Seth
THE FILM
You actually don't have many expectations from Heroes. And that's the sad part because the film boasts of actors who at one point of time could single handedly pull in audience in hordes. Whether it is Salman Khan, Preity Zinta, Mithun Chakraborty, Sunny Deol or Bobby Deol - at the peak of their career, their name was enough to pull in audience. However, in 2008, none of them had any market running for them and hence it only made the task difficult for the team of Heroes to present the film to the audience. Add to this the fact that Heroes is an episodic film with each of the actors having only around 20 minutes screen time each and the whole multi starrer claim is up for question.
However, all this is forgotten 20 minutes into the film. Though the initial reels featuring Sohail and Vatsal as college buddies are decent, they are not arresting. The comic portions with the girls (Ria, Amrita) hardly seem relevant to the plot and 'Badmash Launde' song makes you cringe in your seats. As you settle down to the fact that Heroes is hardly going to be an engrossing fare, Samir Karnik starts revealing his cards. And the first card which turns out to be the ace in the offering is the story around Salman Khan-Preity Zinta.
As Sohail-Vatsal set out in their endeavour of reaching out to the families of three war heroes, Preity Zinta's Punjab turns out to be the first step. Really, it is hard not to be moist eyed for this entire episode as the heart warming story of Salman-Preity love affair followed by him being killed in the war is revealed. That's not the all; their son's (Dwij Yadav) point of view around the war and the soldiers on the other side of the border make you shed a tear or two as along with Sohail-Vatsal, you give a tearful farewell to this family. Salman, Preity and Dwij are first rate here and you move on to another story with even more expectations.
As the superb background theme aids the road journey, Sunny-Bobby track begins. An okay affair, it only gets an occasional chuckle or two (all unintentional) as Sunny Deol appears to be surprisingly out of sorts. He is good when he kicks up the baddies but outrageously hammy when he tries to put up the defense act when camouflaging his loss of younger brother (Bobby Deol) and limbs. There could have been a better hold of narrative when Sunny does his screaming act (watch him look heavenwards as jets scream through the skies). Still, one doesn't mind it all too much since Sohail-Vatsal keep their camaraderie running to hold the movie together.
The Mithun-Dino track is well intentioned again but the expectations after Salman-Preity story turn out to be so high that any sort of mediocrity tends to disappoint. The episode turns out to be a mixed affair because while Dino's narration of a war in progress over a tape is heart wrenching, Mithun's anger over his son's death and the entire non-acceptance attitude just drags on. The rugby sequence in the climax is nice too but not excellent. Also, Salman Khan's reemergence towards the end looks forced (with Salman Khan really looking old) and doesn't elevate the proceedings to the extent that the makers of Heroes would have expected.
In the end, Heroes turns out to be the case of a film which starts off on a brilliant note with it's end being an okay affair. Since the overall impact is mixed, one can only pick up the best that the film had to offer since Samir Karnik's intentions for making the film i.e. how the families of war heroes get affected after their demise, deserve to be lauded. He captures emotions beautifully as well; it's just that at places the narrative looses it's stranglehold due to which Heroes doesn't turn out to be THE film that it looked when it began. All in all, a decent one time watch.
PACKAGING
Cost cutting has certainly hit EROS hard here. For the first time ever, their packaging of a DVD is just not up to the mark. One doesn't expect much from lesser labels but such basic paper-n-plastic packaging from EROS does come across as a surprise.
DURATION
The film's duration is 138 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Making of the film
- Interview - Salman Khan
This certainly has to be one of the better 'Making' sections that have been included in a DVD since the film's producer and director come together to present the film to the audience. While they talk about their experience of filming Heroes, they narrate it in a chronological order, just like the way the film moves from one episode to another. They do not give a serious mood to the entire movie by acting as pseudo intellectuals and instead keep it all fun while aiming for the youth. Moreover, the section takes the viewer truly 'behind the scenes' with an extensive footage being shown around the film being shot at various outdoor locations, the interaction with the locals and the happy-n-sad moments that the crew faced during the filming. A good watch this one.
However, a small interview of Salman Khan is hardly interesting as he merely goes through the motion and looks as disinterested as he has started looking in most of the films (Except for Heroes of course). In fact if one would have thought of forming an opinion about the film by just watching his interview, chances are that one would have skipped watching the film itself!
TECHNICAL DETAILS
- 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen Presentation
- Subtitles in English
- Dolby Digital 5.1 and Stereo
PRICE
Rs. 299/=
CONCLUSION
There have been numerous films starring Salman Khan that have released this year. God Tussi Great Ho and Yuvvraaj featured him in lead roles while Hello had him in a supporting role. Neither did Salman impress in any of these films nor did any of these made waves at the box office. Surprisingly, the only film where he did make an impression was the one where he had a limited screen presence. This was Heroes, a Samir Karnik film, where Salman appeared for only 20 odd minutes but still managed to strike a chord.
 
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