If you aren’t in the mood to read paragraphs about Heart of Stone (HoS), here is the review in a simple yes/no format: Yes, spend your two hours. And no, it’s not as good as any Mission: Impossible movie, even though it has the same McGuffin (ie. necessity plot-point) propelling the story through its action sequences, and is produced by the same company, Skydance.

HoS’s makers know they have two offerings with the same driving force helming the plot, so the official synopsis keeps it ambiguous. The summary reads: “an intelligence operative for a shadowy global peacekeeping agency, races to stop a hacker from stealing its most valuable — and dangerous — weapon.”

Let’s unpack this. The “intelligence officer” is Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot), the second part of the film’s title. The “shadowy global peacekeeping agency” is The Charter. The “hacker” is a young Indian protégé who goes by the name of Keya Dhawan (Alia Bhatt). The “valuable, dangerous weapon” is a quantum computer called Heart, the first part of the film’s title, that can do billions of computations and devise strategies faster than an army of human minds — like Entity, the evil artificial intelligence from Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One.

There are some differences and a lot of similarities between the two films. The Entity is evil and sentient; The Heart, since it is ‘the heart’, is pure and just a computer programme that is run by a geek-ish expert (Matthias Schweighöfer, Army of the Dead, utterly wasted), who flings his hands around like Tom Cruise’s John Anderton from Minority Report.

Heart of Stone is predictable but it’s easy to digest and perhaps forget

Unlike Minority Report and Mission: Impossible, HoS makes one lose interest — though not as much as other spy-thrillers — and drags, but not as much as routine blockbusters. It’s an okay balancing act that keeps one semi-interested with its no-nonsense approach and a good story turn that comes early in the film’s first action set-piece.

Gadot can hold the audience’s attention, despite playing Stone straight; her unvarying performance — and that she doesn’t even change her accent — is offset by Bhatt who, despite evidence of finesse, overacts in typical Bollywood-style (some would call it Indian filmi acting).

Almost all Indian actors who find work in Hollywood ham it up or perform with a slight exaggeration; one can see how dialogue delivery in English throws them off…perhaps as much as it does Gadot.

The two, though, are okay compatriots in a predictable story laden with a series of action sequences, and an engaging first act that explores a modest, family-like atmosphere of Gadot’s spy team. That breath of fresh air is replaced by pedestrian stuff soon, including a villain with surface-level motives.

By the way, I won’t spoil what little intrigue HoS has by naming the actor who plays the villain; the cast includes Jamie Dornan (50 Shades of Grey), Sophie Okonedo (Death on the Nile), Paul Ready (The Dig), Jing Lusi (Crazy Rich Asians) and Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction, The Wife) in a small, forgettable role.

So, yes, HoS, is predictable, but even its cliché is easy to digest, and perhaps forget. Actually, I’ve forgotten half of the film already. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not. HoS, however, is much better than the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Pathaan in any case, so I guess that counts for something.

Heart of Stone is directed by Tom Harper (Aeronauts), with a screenplay by Greg Rucka (Old Guard) and Allison Schroeder (Frozen II). The film is topping the charts on Netflix and is rated PG-13 for the usual spy-action stuff

Published in Dawn, ICON, August 20th, 2023