Heart of Stone Review: Big budget thriller is let down by poor screenplay

THE big budget thriller, which marks Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt’s entry into Hollywood had a premiere on Netflix recently.

The story revolves around a secret agent (Gal Gadot) working for a mysterious organisation designed to keep order globally. She then crosses paths with a young Indian hacker (Alia Bhatt) and an unexpected enemy, who take control of the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence. The fearless female superspy then has a race against time to stop them and recover it.

This film has everything, including eye-catching action, big stunts, scenic locations, and a good looking cast, but sadly what it doesn’t have is good writing.

The screenplay filled with clichés, coincidences, corny dialogues and seen it before story troupes, manages to collapse everything around it. What remains is a one-dimensional storyline that quickly becomes predictable.

What prevents this film from being a total letdown is lead star Gal Gadot, who is a natural in the action genre and a spirited performance from Bhatt. Instead of playing a meaningless role like so many other South Asians in Hollywood projects, the Bollywood star is great as the hacker working for the bad guys. She has a wonderful screen presence and holds her own in what turns out to be a key role.

Sadly, for her, the silly screenplay badly lets down all those associated with a film that never reaches its potential.

Even the talented cast can’t inject life into the film because the writing is so poor and as an audience member, you just wait for the next fight scene or stunt to arrive to distract yourself from the nonsense storyline, which makes even the most over the top Bollywood films look normal.

This is ultimately a daft bit of fun that doesn’t meet up to expectations.