An action hero review

Maanav (Ayushmann Khurrana), a Bollywood hero, is battling a crisis. Wearing a jacket over his bare chest – revealing abs bursting with personalities that demand their own Aadhaar cards – he looks at the mirror and snaps at his secretary. Maanav can’t get angry. He has to shoot an action scene, and the rage just doesn’t come. Haven’t we heard about such starry tantrums before? In fact, go three sentences back, effect a small revision, and see the magic: Bhai can’t get angry. Sounds familiar? Welcome to An Action Hero , a movie so sly that its winks feel like blinks. A few scenes later, Maanav does find his anger. (He’s waited three months for his Mustang, and it’ll reach him in another week.) Maanav flies and punches and poses; he’s aced the shot. But he’s also made another hero – a local hero – wait for hours, Vicky (Sumit Singh), the brother of a local politician in Haryana, Bhoora (Jaideep Ahlawat). Vicky wanted a photo with Maanav. Now Vicky is pissed, and he chases Maanav in his car. They finally meet; a brawl ensues. Maanav pushes Vicky whose head hits a rock and he… dies. The actor flees. Beware what you wish for: Maanav wanted rage; he got road rage. A Bollywood star craves a hit; Maanav got a ‘hit and run’. Does this sound familiar? A star, a car, If these two paragraphs make you believe that An Action Hero , directed by Anirudh Iyer, plays out like a simple satire, then, well, it doesn’t. After the excellent tense opening, I expected the hero’s emasculation, some...

The title is absolutely apt. The fugitive protagonist of An Action Hero is indeed 'an' action hero and not 'any' action hero. And the film isn't any old actioner. Writer-director Anirudh Iyer employs genre devices to create a movie that, in a rare cinematic osmosis, is at once visceral and cerebral. The movie and the titular figure at its centre are both singular entities. They are, respectively, like nothing and nobody else that Indian audiences have seen in recent years. Rarely has a Bollywood action film been this much fun and seldom has a Hindi movie parodied the genre with such flair and intelligence. It takes its job very seriously but never stops laughing at itself and the purveyors of big-screen thrills. A RAW agent - he is one of two - who lands in London in the opening sequence to grill an on-the-lam Mumbai megastar Maanav (Ayushmann Khurrana) says at the fag-end of the story that the celeb narrates to the duo in the course of the interrogation: we are not sure if we should laugh at or be annoyed by the childishness of the yarn that you have spun. We know the answer. There is little doubt that the audience will opt more for the former than the latter reaction, given the jaunty pace of the narrative, the high-spirited set pieces that An Action Hero delivers as it unfolds at a heady pace, and the constant flow of provocative and topical ideas about showbiz, justice and nationhood. Anirudh Iyer deserves to be lauded for the acuity and candour with which he trains th...

Everyone has a gun in their hands. Everyone is shooting. Why? Nobody knows? And each time, a wrong man gets killed. That's precisely what An Action Hero is all about. High on action, not just from the hero but even the bad guys, director Anirudh Iyer's film has several logic-defying moments. While most of them make you question your IQ, you tend to look past them and enjoy the action and funny unfolding of events on screen. Laced with dark humour, An Action Hero has witty dialogues, one-liners and comic punches that stick the perfect landing. Sometimes, even better than the titular action hero in a fight sequence. An Action Hero movie review: Ayushmann Khurrana in a still from the movie. Starring Ayushmann Khurrana as the action hero Maanav Khurana, the film shows him as this 'star' who has just rejected a biopic of a gangster because he wants to stay away from 'bhai log and underworld'. Ironically, he's filming in Haryana, and while enjoying his new ride post pack-up, he ends up accidently killing one Vicky Solanki, younger brother of a notorious gangster and Jat neta Bhoora Solanki (Jaideep Ahlawat), who now wants to avenge his brother's 'murder' and kill Maanav. What then ensues is a cat-and-mouse chase on the streets of UK (you see how the film moves from Haryana to Mumbai to London) with a bunch of trigger-happy men, all aimlessly shooting at each other only to reach a climax that leaves you spellbound. Iyer, who has also written the story took things way beyond our i...

Images, and the devices that capture them, are my focus. I've covered cameras at PCMag for the past 10 years, which has given me a front row seat for the DSLR to mirrorless transition, the smartphone camera revolution, and the mainstream adoption of drones for aerial imaging. You can find me on Instagram GoPro Hero11 Black Specs Name Value Dimensions 2.0 by 2.8 by 1.3 inches Weight 4.5 oz Type Action Camera Sensor Resolution 27 MP Sensor Type CMOS Memory Card Slots 1 Memory Card Format microSDXC Battery Type GoPro Enduro Minimum ISO 100 Maximum ISO 6400 Stabilization Digital Display Size 2.3 inches Touch Screen Connectivity GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB-C Maximum Waterproof Depth 33 feet Video Resolution 5.3K HDMI Output None Flat Profile Editors' Note: GoPro changed its pricing structure on May 9, 2023. Buyers no longer receive a discount when they purchase the Hero11 Black with a GoPro subscription. The Hero11 Black now starts at $399.99 without a subscription. Going forward, the GoPro service costs $24.99 for the first year and $49.99 every year thereafter. GoPro updates its flagship Hero Black (Credit: Jim Fisher) Well, GoPro's engineers decided to change the shape of the image sensor, an upgrade that's not obvious or easy to market, but has some practical benefits, including effective horizon lock. And while frame rates haven't moved forward, the Hero11 Black upgrades its color sampling to 10-bit, a huge benefit for creators who use the flat color profile for creative gr...