Review of Heart of Stone: Alia Bhatt Shares Some of Gal Gadot’s Thunder

Review of Heart of Stone: The two have a great on-screen duel

This Netflix movie’s title alludes to a heart that is not located inside a person’s breast. It is a potent AI-fueled weapon with a capital H that can hack anything, anyplace, and cause mayhem and terror, as it invariably does in the lead-up to Heart of Stone’s climax.

When was the last time we encountered an AI gadget this hazardous? Naturally, in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part 1. However, that was a Tom Cruise blockbuster. Heart of Stone has a lot of large action scenes, but it is not quite as massive in scope and ambition and is much less heart-pounding.

One of the movie’s producers, Gal Gadot, plays an MI6 tech support agent who embarks on a perilous quest to keep “the Heart” out of the wrong hands. She controls Heart of Stone elegantly. But since Alia Bhatt also stars in this movie, she overshadows Wonder Woman’s star power a little. The two’s on-screen fight is fascinating to see.

The female-led action film Heart of Stone, which was directed by Tom Harper (The Aeronauts, Peaky Blinders, and the miniseries War & Peace), doesn’t try anything particularly novel. In fact, it imitates other movies in the genre and uses well-known elements.

The plot features not one, not two, but three fierce female spies who work for the Charter, a clandestine international peacekeeping organization. In addition to Gadot’s Rachel Stone, there is livewire field agent Theresa Yang (Jing Lusi) and her mentor-handler Nomad (Sophie Okonedo).

They encounter Keya Dhawan (Bhatt), a hacker with connections to Pune. Because she has the Heart’s key, she is the one they are seeking for.

Heart of Stone receives a spark from the interracial sorority made up of the ladies in the fast-paced thriller, covering up some of its lack of creativity on times. Additionally, it helps that Gadot and Bhatt both succeed financially when their paths converge.

Heart of Stone begins with the MI6 squad in the Italian Alps trying to free an arms dealer from a casino. The man hasn’t been seen in the open for three years, and if found, the Charter expects him to be a resourceful source of inside information and an asset.

Stone receives repeated instructions not to exit the vehicle being operated by fellow agent Max Bailey (Paul Bailey). While field agent Parker (Jamie Dornan) pursues the target, she enters the ski lodge with the intention of gaining access to the encryption key for the security system.

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The operation fails not produce the desired outcome due to faulty planning. Nomad lashes out at the team for messing up when she returns to London. The scene switches to Lisbon, where Keya is scheduled to attend a club’s grand opening. Stone is in for yet another unpleasant surprise. Everything about the game is altered.

A spy thriller typically begins with a perilous mission in a war-torn and geopolitically sensitive area of the world where a treachery within the ranks or a poorly thought-out action results in a cock-up. The opening scene of Heart of Stone deviates from tradition by taking place in a snowy, high altitude European locale.

When faced with an unexpected circumstance in Heart of Stone, one of the Charter agents remarks, “That’s old school.” A good old rotary phone is dusted and used much later in the movie, which was written by Hidden Figures co-writer Allison Schroeder and novelist Greg Rucka, when the ventilation and communications in a London bunker are cut off.

The old and virtually useless can nonetheless be useful in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).

Heart of Stone relies on tired tropes in numerous other equally obvious ways, despite the fact that the movie’s central conflict is a fierce struggle for control over an extremely complex AI device that, in the hands of adversarial forces, could bring about the end of the planet.

In their contest of wits, Keya and Rachel share something in common. Both are independent individuals who possess the skills to remain unaffected by problems that are not related to the internal motivations that drive them. However, neither is emotionless. Everybody has a justification for what they do. Their pasts make clear why.

The action takes place in a number of places, including England, Portugal, Senegal, and Iceland, as well as in the air. Stone is pursued through crowded city streets, bleak icy landscapes, or perilous deserts, either with or without her squad. Because it puts women right in the middle of the action, this thriller frequently uses cliched techniques yet still manages to surprise viewers with unexpected moments of originality.

Heart of Stone investigates what the pull of power, control, and dominance does to men who, as Stone says, cannot resist using threats and violence when they are within striking distance of tools that might benefit the world as the wronged and the shortchanged clash with one another.

The most intriguing male character in Heart of Stone belongs to Jamie Dornan, who excels in it. It’s Gal Gadot’s show here. She jumps right into her job and makes sure that there is a spark present even in the most mundane circumstances.

In Hindi movies, Alia Bhatt has successfully performed in roles that were far more difficult. She isn’t really pushed very far beyond of her comfort zone in her debut on the global stage. The composure she brings to the table as a troubled young lady who is motivated by both her own heart and “The Heart” that she must keep under control at all costs is stunning, though.

Heart of Stone is a clever thrill-a-minute genre exercise that is significantly improved by the outstanding camerawork of George Steel. The intensity and skill of John Wick are frequently scaled by the cinematography. The stunts are also exceptionally nicely mounted.

Heart of Stone has so much going for it, at least in terms of its core ideas, that it is a little unexpected and depressing to realize that there is still a nagging feeling that the movie isn’t quite as good as it could be.

Cast:

Jamie Dornan, Alia Bhatt, Matthias Schweighofer, Gal Gadot

Director:

Harper, Tom