Wonderful Movie

good back-story, and good acting

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The Three Acts:The initial tableau: Jamie's face is dominated by large birthmarks, plural. The largest one covers his whole left eye area. Jamie does 'real' photography with film, and chemical development where he works with his brother. While trolling for photo opportunities at night, he runs afoul of some bipedal reptilians, who look like gangsters, while they kill two people and set them on fire. Jamie lives with his mother. AJ is Jamie's new neighbor; for lack of other candidates, AJ hopes to become Jamie's friend. Jamie's father George is 10 years dead, but still has a presence in his life. Jamie seems quite alienated by his life, his deformities, his job, is living arrangement, and his lack of prospects with women.Delineation of conflicts: This is somewhat difficult to describe. Why? Because the protagonist seems to be insane. Just how much of this is real? It's hard to get interested in characters when it is not clear what is real and what is feverish imaginings. Let us suppose that what is presented is real. Jamie gets a gun to protect himself after the gang beats the hell out of him and burns his mother alive. The reptiles rake AJ's abdomen with a deep claw attack. The whole setup is to justify Jamie's descent into cooperation with dark forces to solve his self-perceived problems. Jamie would like to have female companionship, marriage, and children. How is that going to happen? Does the dark pact with Papa B help out this problem? Can he back out?If the protagonist is insane, on the other hand, one hopes the conflict in his mind ends before the movie does. Resolution: The protagonist is a broken toy. The usual resolution for broken toys is that they stop working.

Heartless, a directorial debut by Shekhar Suman. I heard Shekhar Suman sharing in one of the TV show during movie promotions that this movie is literally and figuratively heartless. True upto an extent. Shekhar Suman indeed dons the hat of a director in a very good manner. Though, I need to admit that this movie has its own share of flaws and fine points. The first half of the movie is not built up logically and the characters are not defined nicely. I kept on wondering at the fast-motion love which blossomed between the lead pair Adhyayan Suman as Aditya Singh / Addi and Ariyana Ayam as Ria and tried to figure out what actually clicked between them. Why Aditya seemed to be unsure of himself, insecure in life, rebellious at times in spite of his businesswoman mother Ms. Gayatri Singh (played by Deepti Naval) showering him with her love, care, concern…it is not justified properly. The first half gives a feeling that it is going to be the struggle of Aditya to cope up with a deadly heart disease, rather win over the disease with the support of Ria's love. But, when the movie began, the noting said that it focuses on Anesthesia Awareness (a scary situation wherein a patient seemingly unconscious to the doctors is able to hear sounds and experience pain). So, my thoughts moved to the direction that probably, it could be a case of medical negligence. Could it be a love story or be a Medical Thriller…?But the plot changes its track in the second half which kept me glued to the screen better than the first half ...the story begins here. With unpredictable and shocking twists, suspense is built up, still I wish the subject could have been dealt more clearly (though it is heartless on my part to say so). Adhyayan looks good on screen, especially during the song sequences. Ariyana delivered an average performance, though looks pretty on screen. Shekhar Suman as Cardiologist Samar Saxena is effortless in his performance. But the non-clarity (at times) of the script gets translated to his certain scenes as well. Deepti Naval is great as Aditya's mother, whose head-strong shrewd personality is shown on one side and on the other hand, a doting mother who lived for her son. Om Puri as Dr. Trehaan's role is minimal yet pivotal to the movie. Thumbs up for the exceedingly well shot scenes (especially Dubai) by Cinematographer Derrick Fong, a few nice songs (though out of place at times), a heart-touching emotional mother-son scene towards the end, no melodrama overpowering the characters… and above all a welcome break from the regular story

Many people have devils/demons inside and some think there are outside too... And the reasons are usually related to childhood and family. Thus, the plot in Heartless is trivial, exploited several times (and likely in the future as well). Indeed, I am sure there are lots of viewers who consider bonfire, explosions, immolation, monster masks etc. horrifying and intense, but I am not an admirer of those elements used constantly, making the watching tedious at times. Luckily, there are some good performances, particularly Jim Sturgess as Jamie Morgan and Eddie Marsan as Weapons Man, the rest were nothing special, and Papa B's and Lee's characters were rather stodgy. The length 115 minutes was also too much and the ending was probably meant to be sophisticated, but resulted in pretentious reasoning.For a British film, nothing special, there is much more interesting stuff out there.

I don't mind a film where the ending is left open for interpretation or ambiguity causes an internal dialog and we need to delve deeper in the movie for answers.I felt that Heartless was too weak here. There were many variables and unexplained characters and motives. What was the little girl? I have 3-4 opinions on who she was, but those are just too many to keep the movie flowing.I've just read through other's opinions and reviews. I would love to hear the definitive answer so I could better judge this movie.Acting was good with Sturgess being able to carry well. I liked the setting and mood.Worth viewing but you have more questions than answers.