Movie review: Heartless

Director: Shekhar Suman
Cast: Adhyayan Suman, Ariana Ayam, Deepti Naval, Om Puri
Rating: 

Most Hindi films are about dil-vil and pyaar-vyaar. Actor-turned director Shekhar Suman's debut directorial is about that for the first (and large) part of the film. Once the jazz of the regular rich boy-poor girl romance, met with parental opposition is over and done with is when you arrive at the heart of the problem in Heartless.

The romantic-medical thriller throws light on a condition called anesthetic awareness, a scary situation in which a patient seemingly unconscious to the doctors is able to hear sounds and experience pain. The lead protagonist Aditya (Adhyayan Suman) who is undergoing a surgery in the operation theatre hears extremely disturbing facts that will shake the rest of his life, if he were to come alive out of operation theatre.

You will get to witness how Aditya's mother Gayatri (Deepti Naval) and his wife Ria (Adriana Ayam) whom he has married without her knowledge deal with things under adverse condition in the waiting room. What extreme steps does a mother take to save the life of her son even though another doctor-friend Dr Trehaan (Om Puri) terms it ridiculous and suicidal is another shocking point of the story. What happens when the surgery being performed on the patient is headed by a corrupt cardiologist Sameer (Shekhar Suman) should also knock the daylight out of you.

With so much going for it, sadly the film takes too long, in fact very long to arrive at a fixture from where you would want to remain glued to your seat. Before that you have to bear with three songs between Aditya and Ria, shot in picturesque locations of Dubai. If that was not enough, after you know that the hero is battling for his life in the operation theatre you are once again hit by an unnecessary VFX-laden song which is supposed to communicate the angst and anguish of the patient lying on the operation table.

Senior Suman's effort to choose an unconventional subject to re-launch his son's failed acting career is commendable. The first time director comes out better than most rich daddies who push their wards to attain stardom. Yet the effort and tension wanes out after a promising sense of suspense that is built up in this thriller. Things just don't look accurate in this medical setting and the result is laughable when an anesthesiologist is joking and talking about IPL in the operation theatre as if having coffee machine conversation with his other medical colleagues. It is even more incredible when you learn that he was the only honest medical doctor in the room.
 
Shekhar Suman wastes far too much time making his son look super cool in song and dance sequences. Adhyayan's performance though better than that in his first film Haal-e-Dil never rises above the average. Adriana has good screen presence, can look glamorous but when it's time for her character to do a turnaround she does not come across as convincingly menacing. Even competent seniors like Om Puri and Deepti Naval don't adequately make the cut though the mother-son relationship between Deepti and Adyayan is moving. At a few points Deepti Naval comes across as a near-vamp from a TV soap rather than a cutting-edge business woman who has held the reins of her husband's business empire after his death. The songs are the biggest road block in the smooth flow of the narrative of this thriller.

Truth be told. Shekhar Suman, the actor in Heartless, is more impressive than the director of the film. Better luck next time.