I’ve often wondered why competent Indian actors make the trip halfway around the world, only to be disrespected with the most perfunctory roles. “It’s a bigger profile”, “You’ll work alongside Hollywood A-listers”, “It’s a great career move” – are often reasons that spring to mind. But then I realised how a year before her Hollywood debut in Netflix’s Heart of Stone, Alia Bhatt played a similarly inane role in Brahmastra: Part One – Shiva. Greed, I suppose, can convince the most lucid amongst us to participate in the most dim-witted enterprises in India and also across international borders.

What Bhatt – one of India’s most promising actors – has to suffer from in this Tom Harper film is nothing short of indignity. Playing the role of a 22-year-old whizkid hacker named Keya Dhawan, Bhatt is mostly required to flash her luminous smile after delivering a snappy one-liner. And then feign surprise during the most basic plot-points of the film. “You told me you wanted to bring down the Charter, not kill the people running it,” she shrieks at someone. Bhatt, who rose through the ranks of Bollywood by subverting ingénue parts with her spunk, is tasked with playing the outline of an ingénue here. To be fair, she’s sincere through most of it. It’s the film that is the bigger problem.

Heart of Stone follows a secret spy outfit called the Charter – a body of international spies – which operates from the shadows. When international incidents get out of hand, the Charter intervenes. They’re guided by some supercomputer called the Heart, which can hack into any system in any part of the world thereby giving it absolute power in an increasingly digital world. It sounds eerily similar to the plot of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One, where Cruise and his colleagues chase a programme called The Entity. The only difference here is that the Heart doesn’t seem to be sentient yet.

Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) is a devoted member of the Charter, with a vague and generic past. She pulls off daredevil stunts, has the odd sentimental moment of reflection, but a big part of her job is to get on the radio only to say “I’m fine” after escaping near-certain death yet again. There’s little doubt about Gadot’s prowess as an action star – but after Wonder Woman (2017), each successive project of hers has chipped away at her credibility as even a barebones actor.

One of the biggest issues with Heart of Stone is how little of it seems to have a voice of its own. The Charter seems to be borrowing from the age-old trope of secret societies of assassins/spies – something that was recently rehashed in the Amazon original, Citadel. A machine dictating missions, as the world’s most highly-trained spies simply take its word without exercising their own discretion, is reminiscent of everything from Minority Report (2002) to Wanted (2008). The plot line of a former spy abandoned by his agency, coming back to get his revenge, is a trope that has been around forever, most prominently in Skyfall (2012).

Somehow, it’s considered acceptable that one organisation wields the power of the Heart, and thereby make the calls for the ‘greater good’. It’s something even Tom Cruise struggles with in the latest Mission Impossible film. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the villains in this film (ably supported by Bhatt’s baby-faced hacker) will try and steal the Heart. Gadot must stop them.

Even in a plot as superficial as this though, there might still be room for fun. A few imaginative action set-pieces, some unexpected humour, at least some personality to the characters beyond their cursory outline. Alas, Heart of Stone is a testament to the Netflix assembly-line of action films – most of which seem to have the same bluish tinge, the action choreography seems to mistake loudness for scale, and the one-liners seem to have the smugness of a Marvel superhero film. It won’t be harsh to say that Heart of Stone feels like a microwaved version of all leftover tropes from action films from the past decade or so.

For a film that is hinged on a futuristic technology like an AI, Heart of Stone feels weirdly dated. A lot of the frantic ‘hacking scenes’ seem reminiscent of giddy ‘90s action films that usually employed a ‘hacker’ to conjure all the contrivances a screenwriter could think of. Solid actors like Sophie Okonedo and Jamie Dornan are wasted in roles needing them to rally around Gadot – so that she can have her own action franchise moment.

An unintentionally funny thing about Harper’s film is that a billion-dollar corporation leads with knowing Bhatt’s potential, and then goes on to confidently waste her talents. They’re clueless, just like in the matters of the heart.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.