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As the fight for Kashmir between India & Pakistan escalates, part of the
Pakistani government wand to drop their atom bomb on India, but since they
connot do so officially, they hire terrorist & KAshmir freedom fighter
Ishaq Khan (Amrish Puri) to steal their bomb & drop it where
intended. However, their plan is overheard by Indian intelligence & spoiled
before it's even started, & now Ishaq Khan & gang try everything to
keep evidence against them from reaching the UN. But they have made their plans
without superagent Arun (Sunny Deol), who - with the help of some clever
disguises - soon has them arrested & sent to prison in Pakistan.
After the success of this mission, Arun is sent to Kashmir to keep watch at
the border to Pakistan, & here, he tries to win the (Islamic) inhabitants
of the neighboring villages over to his side by showing them love & support
- in which he of course succeeds, especially in the case of beautiful (Hindu)
shepherd girl Reshma (Preity Zinta), who soon falls in love with him, &
furthermore, she also provides him with valuable information about terrorist
hideouts. & when she once saves Arun from being buried under an avalanche
when on terrorist hunt & nurses him back to health, he starts to have
feelings for Reshma, too.
However, that doesn't keep Arun from sending Reshma on a dangerous mission
to Pakistan, where she - posing as a servant girl - has to spy on a Pakistani
general, who might be in league with some terrorists. In the bneginning,
everything runs smoothly, with Reshma providing much information from the
general, but then Ishaq Khan - who has secretly been released from Pakistanki
imprisonment - arrives at the general's place, & when transmitting these
news to Arun, Reshma is found out, & she can barely escape with her life,
with Arun having to shoot her way free in the end.
But as romance between Arun & Reshma is now in full swing, soon they
celebrate their engagement at a big New Year's party ... which is all of a
sudden blown up by Ishaq Khan's terrorists as an act of revenge on Arun, &
many of the party guests die or are injured while Reshma is caried away by the
river that floats directly under the destroyed venue ...
As fate has it, this same river takes the unconscious body of Reshma to
Pakistan, where she is found by the benevolent Salman (Parvin Dabas), who
immediately falls in love with her & takes her to a hospital, where her
life can be saved but she remains paralized, especially because of hearing of
Arun's death at above mentioned explosion.
Of course, Arun's death was only faked, as he has realized he has more
freedom to smoke out the terrorists' nest when believed deceased, & soon
this leads him to Canada, where Ishaq Khan seems to have put up new
headquarters - & Reshma's way leads to Canada as well, as Salman has
realized she cannot be safe in Pakistan & the chances for her being healed
are better in a Canadian clinic - & in Canada, Reshma also finds a first
clue of Arun being alive, which finally gives her the motivation to overcome
her paralysis ...
Arun has meanwhile found out Ishaq Khan's contact in Canada, Zakaria (Kabir
Bedi), who runs an atomic research center (quite legally), but has agreed to
give Ishaq Khan some plutonium to build a bomb for the freedom of Kashmir.
& after breaking into the research center to find evidence against Zakaria
fails rather miserably, Arun devices another clever plan, disguising himself as
a nuclear scientist & getting to Zakaria through his well-meaning daughter
Shaheen (Priyanka Chopra), who immediatela falls in love with Arun, but - as
fate has it - she also is the physiotherapist of Reshma (!).
Arun's plan seems to work perfectly, as he soon gains the full trust of both
Zakaria & Ishaq Khan, even though that means he has to marry Shaheen -
& break the heart of Reshma, who's the bridesmaid at the wedding, where she
of course recognizes him, in the process. & when Arun later wants to
explain the whole thing to Reshma in secret, his conversation is overheard by
Shaheen - but will she spill the beans to her father, or listen to the
arguments of her hubby ?
Soon, Arun is finally lead to the terrorists secret hideout inside a
Canadian mountain neatr a tourist resort, where all the parts of the bomb are
kept, & he even manages to make the terrorists unsuspiciously spill the
beans about their associates to him ... but then his true identity is found out
& he is thrown off a cliff (which he rather surprisingly survives without
injury). & as the Canadian army approaches the hideout, Ishaq KKhan,
Zakaria & gang take a tourist train hostage & want to make a getaway,
but then Shaheen hops on the train too, & she has been convinced by Arun's
words that what her father does is wrong, & she wants to talk sense into
him. A rift between Ishaq Khan & Zakaria, who starts listening to his
daughter, occurs, not at all made better by the fact that Ishaq Khan shoots
Shaheen, but in the end, of course Arun saves the day on a ski-scooter, &
he blows up main baddie Ishaq Khan with his own plutonium ..
& after a 2-year period of being healed from plutonium poisoning, Arun -
a free man again after Shaheen has died for the cause of good - is reunited
with Reshma.
This movie was definitely made in the wake of the successes of the 1990's
revival James Bond series & its many Hollywood big-budget
rip-offs (e.g. the Mission Impossible series, The Saint),
& as all these movies are as well, The Hero is far from being a
wholly original film. The action, though competently directed, is routine &
uninspired, & thanks to all the familiar plot
elements (& the fact that we know both hero & heroine survive the story from the very beginning) the suspense is somewhat lacking.
What most annoys about The Hero though is its oversimplification of the Kashmir conflict with its
Indian-good, Pakistani-evil equation, which is pretty much a continuation of a
theme picked up from Gadar: A Love Story, the movie that catapulted
Sunny Deol back to superstardom after a series of box-office flops.
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