City Times Review: Made for Varun

Main Tera Hero is Varun Dhawan’s show all the way. The boy scores while the film is a mindless charade, Deepa Gauri writes

By Deepa Gauri

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Published: Sat 5 Apr 2014, 12:16 PM

Last updated: Tue 7 Nov 2023, 11:00 AM

What you expect from a David Dhawan movie is what you get from Main Tera Hero. The only exception is that it showcases a bright new talent for Bollywood, Varun Dhawan, who returns to the screen two years after his fine debut in Student of the Year.

While comparisons with David’s favourite actor Govinda are inevitable, Varun stands out for a lot more than his colourful costumes and six packs. He is effortless, has eye-candy value and does everything that Govinda would have done, but with a lot more panache.


However, some two-odd hours of Varun this, Varun that and Varun on adrenaline-high don’t make Main Tera Hero anything more than a mindless charade.

One minute into the movie and the record is set straight: This one is going to be as cheesy if not cheap and tacky as any movie of David Dhawan’s. Forget logic, which you anyway don’t look for in such a movie.


This is Bollywood as you knew it in the 80s – a hero who can do anything, plastic heroines in skimpy attire, foreign locations, fumbling sidekicks, villains who border on the silly, dialogues that rhyme, and the works. The bottom line: Films that lack class.

And that is where Varun makes the difference: If a typical Govinda-David Dhawan movie was strictly for the so-called ‘frontbenchers,’ Varun takes it to a few more rows behind, but sadly not more. But then, every newcomer cannot be ‘Shah Rukh Khan’ material.

Varun, at best, is a Shahid Kapoor – talented, great dancer, smart in action and effortless in comedy without resorting to making faces as the likes of Akshay Kumar do in the name of humour. He is a bit of Salman Khan, when it comes to walking shirt-less and far better as an actor. At worst, he is the next Govinda in the making. We hope better sense prevails when it comes to choosing roles.

The remake of the Telugu movie Kandireega, and mercifully not entirely faithful in adaptation, Main Tera Hero presents Varun as Seenu, a happy-go-lucky youngster, who gets just about anything he wants. His hometown is happy to see him go, already fed up of his pranks, including the abduction of his school principal’s daughter for two extra marks that will help him pass the exam.

Well, he might have flunked, but next we know, he is in college, where his mission is to win over Sunaina (Ileana D’Cruz - good). But no, a police inspector Angad (Arunoday Singh - impressive) with serious anger management issues has set his eyes on her.

But, hell no, there is Ayesha (Nargis Fakhri – terrible), the daughter of dreaded gangster Vikrant (Anupam Kher – thankfully not over-the-top) from Bangkok, who believes she is in love with Seenu. So Sunaina is summarily abducted so she can get her hands on Seenu. And on it goes, until the entire cast lands in Bangkok, where after a few twists and turns, every one finds their true heroes.

Main Tera Hero has some foot-tapping numbers by Sajid-Wajid that bring out the dancer in Varun. It has loads of Dhawan-esque buffoonery. It has everything you expect from a Telugu film remake.

But it is neither overtly entertaining nor fascinatingly engaging. It is just another B-grade film from B-Town, a little more respectable thanks to Varun.


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