A few months back when I saw THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (2010/Korea - the film, ROCKY HANDSOME is an official remake of), I personally never rated it as any great movie and certainly didn’t think of it as deserving enough to be remade in Hindi for two major reasons. One, as it was so brutally bloody in its action sequences that could have never passed from our censors if adapted truthfully. And two, since we had already made many similar movies in the past (involving a kid) that never worked at the box office due to their own distinctive reasons.
To name them all, copying the content from a much appreciated LEON – THE PROFESSIONAL (1994-France), we had BICHOO (2000/Bobby Deol/Rani Mukherjee) replacing the kid with a young girl innovatively, CHAMPION released in the same year featuring Sunny Deol with a kid boy and EK AJNABEE (Amitabh Bachchan) in 2005, taking its major content unofficially from MAN ON FIRE (2004) yet again revolving around a child. Ironically none of the above Hindi films could perform well at the box office. But the jinx got recently broken by BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN (2015), which actually had many other elements working in its favor apart from the cute little girl including comedy, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and above all Pakistan.
So keeping the track record and the original in mind, I was quite firm on the opinion that a remake of THE MAN FROM NOWHERE can only work if some fresh interesting angles are added into it deviating from the source itself. But sadly the makers do nothing of that sort in this official version and decide to go for an almost scene to scene adaptation, toning down the much important action sequences too, resulting in ‘an unimpressive film’ in totality, confirming the fear I had.
Beginning with an unrequired (flashback) song, ROCKY HANDSOME does make a decent impact in its first 15 minutes entirely focusing on the kid-girl itself. But the moment its attention shifts to the same old clichéd stuff of drugs, gangsters, secret agents and more, the film suddenly turns into a pretty ordinary product, marching towards a strictly routine Hindi film climax that actually should have been its major highlight following the original. In fact the most annoying scenes in the film are the ones featuring the gang of villains, who ironically include the director of the film too playing a significant role.
To give the technical department its due, ROCKY HANDSOME does have a fine cinematography and a well composed background score matching the international standards. But it’s stereotyped characters, over the top execution, annoying theatrics, unwanted rains, hamming dialogues and too much style focusing on the hero, together result in a completely ‘non performing remake’ that should have been avoided in the first place. Besides, even the action in the film, that was supposed to be a path breaking one as per the promotions, turns out to be nothing exceptionally great, apart from the climax and the sequences shown in the intercuts of song ‘Rock the party’.
Following the current Bollywood trend, its soundtrack once again has an almost decade old borrowed hit ‘Teri Toh/Rock The Party’ by Bombay Rockers and a few average unwanted songs in an action oriented project adding to its over-length. Still, “Yeh Kya Kiya Khuda” sounds good mainly due to its perfect placement in the film along with an emotionally shattering moment. But this particular track repeatedly forced me to think that, “Has SHOUTING become an essential feature of our songs today, even in the ones having some praiseworthy, heartwarming lyrics such as this?” Leaving the answer to be contemplated upon by the readers themselves, I did like the musical arrangement of some tracks, but wish the melody was also there as required.
As far as performances are concerned, ROCKY HANDSOME has either got simple, straight wooden acts or overdone, exaggerated enactments putting it bluntly. Where the straight faced acts come from John Abraham, Diya Chalwad (the kid girl), Shruti Hassan, Nathalia Kaur and the director himself, the overblown ones get delivered by all the bad-men loudly led by the hamming Ted Maurya. So Sharad Kelkar remains the only person performing in a sane manner in the film asking for your instant attention.
Joining the veteran actor-director Prakash Jha, ROCKY HANDSOME also has its director Nishikant Kamat playing the major role of a villain trying his level best. But personally speaking, its really painful to see such drastic transformation on the screen, when the director of thought provoking films such as DOMBIVLI FAST (Marathi) and MUMBAI MERI JAAN (included in BTC’s Movies To See Before You Die List) begins making all quick, average remakes like FORCE, DRISHYAM and the present one, taking the much easier path.
Comparing ROCKY HANDSOME with its Korean original, Nishikant partially alters its actual chronological order which doesn’t work and the impact gets lost in the narration repeatedly going into flashbacks unnecessarily. The references of ‘a pawn shop’ and ‘nails-art’ are taken as it is that might not appeal to many. Moreover a Korean film simply cannot be imitated when it comes to its brutally executed action sequences with a lot of blood, wounds and an awful manslaughter. Exactly the reason why everything gets toned down here quite severely, making way for all mindless style, particularly in the climax ruining the much effective ‘eye bottle’ sequence of the original.
Keeping it strictly a scene to scene adaptation, the director also retains a highly cliched scene, wherein the hero takes out a bullet out of his body with a knife. Now that’s what we have been seeing in our Hindi films since the late 70s, which certainly should have been ignored by the writers avoiding the nostalgia. Further there is also an amazing ‘window breaking chase sequence’ in the original, which is again copied in a highly timid manner using the graphics, revealing the casual vision of the team aiming just for a quick remake.
Overall, ROCKY HANDSOME has neither anything like ROCKY nor its HANDSOME enough to be given a chance spending your hard earned money and time. So go for it only if you are a die-hard fan of all bare bodied-stylized action sequences alone and don’t care about anything else in the film to be precise.
Rating : 2 / 5 (Including the additional points just for its background score alone.)
