‘Heartless’ review: There’s a plot, and it needs unraveling

The only reason to watch this one was to see what Shekhar Suman would do in his directorial debut. The performer who was a one-man comedy central on his hugely popular TV shows, who popularised stand up before it became such a hot proposition, and who spent some time with the beauteous Rekha in a hot tub (remember the young suitor in ‘Utsav’?), has come up with a film to rescue his son, Adhyayan, from oblivion. Paternally speaking, the reason is fine; the film is very far from.

It is ostensibly made to alert viewers to an anesthesia glitch which propels patients into a state of awareness where they can feel pain and can hear everything, but are unable to say it. To get Addy ( Adhyayan) to that stage, where he is lying helpless upon a table, we have to go through a first half where we are introduced to his very wealthy mother ( Naval, the only good thing in the film), his girl friend ( Ayam)whose whose lashes are so spiked with mascara that you are afraid they will fall off, and a doctor friend ( Suman, trying desperately to look young) who will conduct the heart transplant operation needed to save Addy’s life.

The second half is a hoot. I’m sure it was not intended to be. If a real-life surgeon actually sees what happens in this make-believe operation theatre, I’m convinced he’d laugh his head off. He’s fibbing, he’s fibbing, exclaims Dr Trehan ( Puri, who seems to have wandered into the film wondering what he’s doing there), and you see a bunch of masked fellows rushing to resuscitate our hero, who is roaming around in his hospital gown gasping for breath. There’s a plot, and it needs unraveling.

They should have just let it be.

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