Rocky Handsome: Brawn matters

Rocky Handsome tires you out with its innate emptiness.The film meanders, loses plot very often, and finally comes to a conclusion where there is little surprise in store.

Rocky Handsome is one hunk of a movie, the hunk in question being John Abraham, of course, in a title role. 
That should have been alright but for the fact that the said-hunk has little to offer other than some gritty, raw action, and then stare vacantly at the camera. 
To give credit where it is due, the film has some fantastically choreographed action sequences; some of them are indeed nail-biting. But to put together it all into a coherent whole that makes sense and engages you is where director Nishikant Kamat falls short. 
Kamat is not a bad director; earlier, he adapted the Tamil superhit film Kaakha Kaakha with John Abraham as Force. There was some great action, again, but John Abraham's acting chops was no match for the meanness Surya brought to the Tamil original. 
He then ventured into Malayalam to remake Drishyam with Ajay Devgan. As a faithful remake, the film worked to a great extent though its soul was diluted. Now when he goes to Korea to adapt The Man from Nowhere, the same challenge persists: Transforming the soul of the original into a Bollywood milieu.
Here, the irritants exceed the pluses; it is high time that Shruti Haasan reinvents herself other than waste her talent in half-baked roles. As Rukshita, the doting wife of Kabir Ahlawat alias Rocky Handsome, she adds little value to the proceeding other than wear you out with all those sugary-syrupy love. 
But it is not Rukshita who really propels the narrative forward; it is Nayomi (Diya Chalwad), the daughter of Anna (Nathalia Kaur) and her bonding with Kabir, even giving him the 'Handsome' surname, which brings in the twists and plot-points. 
As she gets caught in the middle, Kabir who runs a pawn shop (well, not too many surprises for what follows), gets into action mode. 
What is then inevitable is high-wattage action at intermittent intervals as the usual suspects enter the fray; here, they are druglords with Nishikant Kamat too playing one. 
Do we want the baddies to be eliminated? Do we really care what happens between Kabir and Nayomi? Should we really bother? 
Suffice to say that the film meanders, loses plot very often, and finally comes to a conclusion where there is little surprise in store. 
The high-point of Rocky Handsome, as said, is its action sequences. John has invested his energy and might into the role but there is only so much you can do when the character or the milieu appears distant and not-very-engaging. 
As for the goons, some are overtly irritating; the others go about with their notion of terror often overdoing their act. Nishikant has invested some thought into making the bad guys colourful but frankly, in the overall scheme of things, it just doesn't matter. 
Rocky Handsome could have been something else altogether - if only there was a little more sense of believability and not the same-old recycled one-man-army revenge formula. 
Not every director is a Quentin Tarantino; the sooner Bollywood's directors realise it, the faster we will be spared of stylized gore-fests that, let us admit it, are not even all that spell-binding stylish. 

Rocky Handsome
Directed by Nishikant Kamat
Starring: John Abraham, Shruti Haasan
Now playing at theatres in the UAE
Rating: 1/5