Hero Review: An empowering movie with a strong message

Hero is definitely up an ante in Sivakarthikeyan‘s career. It is a role that sets the bar high regarding standard, performance and value.

The movie feels fresh and P. S. Mithran who proved himself with Irumbuthirai has done it one more time with his novel thinking and writing.

Hero is not just empowering but also makes us think by leaving a strong message. Thankfully, in doing so, Hero is not preachy, which is a big relief!

With the visuals, and the character design, most people get the impression that Hero could be somewhat similar to Irumbuthirai.

But both the movies are totally different in terms of story and treatment – just that we have the same director plus Arjun (impressive) and perhaps a few other technicians in the crew.

Hero is all about the ruined education system and how it stops innovations and just makes the brain of innovators dumb by thrusting them down in various ways.

We have Shakthi (Sivakarthikeyan) who makes a living by selling fake certificates. Robo Shakar plays Ink, his friend/sidekick.

Shakthi himself is inspired by Shakthimaan as a school kid and wants to be a super hero.

On another line, we have Moorthy (Arjun) who is a wiz, and also who is not happy about the education system and wants to make a change.

He has a backstory that tells us how he provides free education and is inspiring to youngsters and innovations.

However it is not enough to change the spoiled education system!

As a villain, we have a man who sees education as a business – but as he says himself, his business is not based on education, but is based on the students.

These three cross lines and what happens afterwards form the rest of the movie.

The writing is brilliant and has enough depth to justify what we see on screen.

Yuvan’s music is very OKish for the songs. But in the BGM, he has proved himself.

In fact Hero gains its tempo, and the movie’s whole feel is elevated due to the BGM. A big plus.

Another big plus to the movie is the cinematography. The lighting, the angles and the shots as a whole do perfect justice to the Super Hero concept.

Robo Shankar and the scenes involving him give some comic relief in the beginning. But the movie shifts towards a serious tone soon after and hence Robo Shankar’s presence is very less on screen.

Similarly, we have a romantic track, that’s thankfully brief. Kalyani Priyadarshan plays the love interest of SK and her performance is quite neat.

Just that she is not given enough screen time, which can be seen as a plus.

Where the movie goes wrong is with the logical loopholes and the liberal use of cinematic liberty.

There are some scenes that make us question reality! Even though it is cinema, there needs to be some sort of logic right?

And for a movie with this much seriousness, and a movie that presents itself as a well-researched, well-detailed one, there definitely needs to be logic everywhere.

Plus the movie’s run time is a minus too. We feel about 20 minutes could have been easily cut short.

Not doing that has made the movie bulky. And, we can also obviously feel the lag in the second half, even as the movie starts to movie into the serious tone.

If you are ready to overlook these negatives, you can definitely enjoy Hero in the big screen.

The movie needs an applause and recognition for the idea, and the writing! Well done.