Director: Ashok Mehta Starring: Arjun Rampal, Manisha Koirala
Rating: 7 out of 10
The film is definitely very different and thought provoking. But my love affair with this movie wasn't a very smooth one. I actually was bored out of my mind during the first forty minutes. It's only after that, that I became engrossed in the storyline and I began to understand why certain portions of the film was in black and white and why some previously hard-to-understand scenes occurred. After the initial hesitation at the beginning, I must say I really enjoyed this flick. The story is about how a disillusioned lawyer Vikram Sehgal (Arjun Rampal) decides that he must stop being selfish and be more concerned about the poor man. So he tries to set up a new court where poor men can have their cases looked at in a fair manner. But it becomes so hard to set up and Arjun becomes so obsessed about trying to make a success of it. But little does he realise, that by trying to make a go of this scheme, he becomes an even more selfish and hypocritical human being...
This is a very symbolic movie full of metaphors and symbols. But I enjoyed figuring out the symbols a lot! :) This is a very thought-provoking film, which refreshingly has a hero with real gray shades. He reminded me of Christian Bale's character in American Psycho (though Bale had to portray a much nastier anti-hero). What I found interesting was the way Vikram is cold towards his girlfriend Ritika Sanyal (Manisha Koirala). He loves her with passion but at the same time he is also cruelly aloof. In one scene, the lead characters go climbing to get to the top of a cliff. When Vikram gets to the top, he decides to let out his frustrations and kicks a rock off the cliff and just let it fall to the bottom. But Ritika is still climbing up the hill and as the rock tumbles downhill, it nearly hits her (but it doesn't). It suddenly strikes us that he does not care about his girlfriend much, he is too self-involved in his own frustrations that he doesn't care whether Ritika gets hurt or not.
Performances are hit and miss. Manisha is terrible in the beginning but she improves when the plot gets going. It's as if she suddenly realised that the movie is a decent one and started to put effort into her acting. Manisha is very good in one scene where she confronts her Arjun after he calls her khudgarz. She cries because she has done so much for him and she still is called khudgarz. I found that scene moving. Arjun is OK, he is good when he is angry and when he has to project the cold element of his character. In other scenes, he is simply expressionless. But I still wouldn't trade him for a different actor, if I were to reshoot the film, I would just make him work harder on his acting. His character is very psychological. He is likeable but at the same time he is also very sadistic to the people he loves in the film and some viewers may hate him for that. Naseeruddin Shah's cameo as the increasingly confused journalist was good.
The direction is excellent, Ashok Mehta does have potential. He excels with the black and white scenes. Rampal's character does literally nothing except just let water splash over him but even in these scenes, Mehta has the knack of making them compelling. The way he films the scene where Vikram drops Ritika into the sea is just mindblowing!! It is so unexpected, you think that he will accidentally drop her into the water and try to save her. But no, he just lets her slide out of her arms and as the poor girl falls into the water, we get a close up of Vikram's face, which looks away. He looks so cold there and his eyes have that suitably icy expression. The final scene where the bank robbery occurs, it is marvellously directed because Mehta just shows the feet of the people in the bank and as they walk about quickly or run, you know that there is panic and chaos in the bank. And I liked the imagery that Mehta constantly uses with water and money. I don't quite know what the significance of water was meant to be. But I think it was supposed to represent humanity. The water can be clean but just like Arjun Rampal's character, it can also become dirty when mixed with other elements like sand or mud. It can also become cold and turn into ice (the imagery of ice is also used in this movie) signifying the cold feelings of the hero.
But the movie is not without its flaws. I found the dream sequence of Manisha's character very laughable. What on earth was she wearing?! She wears something very weird, which unfortunately turns her into a laughing stock. In this scene, the movie began to get a little too pretentious and too arty. So many things were happening and you have to admit that the sets were a bit dodgy. And the music, though sweet (like "Nanimaa") is almost forgettable. I like two songs Seep Main Moti and Humko Pyaar Hai and they have very good picturisations. I liked Jaan Leva a lot too but my craze for that song has worn off.
Rating: 7 out of 10
The film is definitely very different and thought provoking. But my love affair with this movie wasn't a very smooth one. I actually was bored out of my mind during the first forty minutes. It's only after that, that I became engrossed in the storyline and I began to understand why certain portions of the film was in black and white and why some previously hard-to-understand scenes occurred. After the initial hesitation at the beginning, I must say I really enjoyed this flick. The story is about how a disillusioned lawyer Vikram Sehgal (Arjun Rampal) decides that he must stop being selfish and be more concerned about the poor man. So he tries to set up a new court where poor men can have their cases looked at in a fair manner. But it becomes so hard to set up and Arjun becomes so obsessed about trying to make a success of it. But little does he realise, that by trying to make a go of this scheme, he becomes an even more selfish and hypocritical human being...
This is a very symbolic movie full of metaphors and symbols. But I enjoyed figuring out the symbols a lot! :) This is a very thought-provoking film, which refreshingly has a hero with real gray shades. He reminded me of Christian Bale's character in American Psycho (though Bale had to portray a much nastier anti-hero). What I found interesting was the way Vikram is cold towards his girlfriend Ritika Sanyal (Manisha Koirala). He loves her with passion but at the same time he is also cruelly aloof. In one scene, the lead characters go climbing to get to the top of a cliff. When Vikram gets to the top, he decides to let out his frustrations and kicks a rock off the cliff and just let it fall to the bottom. But Ritika is still climbing up the hill and as the rock tumbles downhill, it nearly hits her (but it doesn't). It suddenly strikes us that he does not care about his girlfriend much, he is too self-involved in his own frustrations that he doesn't care whether Ritika gets hurt or not.
Performances are hit and miss. Manisha is terrible in the beginning but she improves when the plot gets going. It's as if she suddenly realised that the movie is a decent one and started to put effort into her acting. Manisha is very good in one scene where she confronts her Arjun after he calls her khudgarz. She cries because she has done so much for him and she still is called khudgarz. I found that scene moving. Arjun is OK, he is good when he is angry and when he has to project the cold element of his character. In other scenes, he is simply expressionless. But I still wouldn't trade him for a different actor, if I were to reshoot the film, I would just make him work harder on his acting. His character is very psychological. He is likeable but at the same time he is also very sadistic to the people he loves in the film and some viewers may hate him for that. Naseeruddin Shah's cameo as the increasingly confused journalist was good.
The direction is excellent, Ashok Mehta does have potential. He excels with the black and white scenes. Rampal's character does literally nothing except just let water splash over him but even in these scenes, Mehta has the knack of making them compelling. The way he films the scene where Vikram drops Ritika into the sea is just mindblowing!! It is so unexpected, you think that he will accidentally drop her into the water and try to save her. But no, he just lets her slide out of her arms and as the poor girl falls into the water, we get a close up of Vikram's face, which looks away. He looks so cold there and his eyes have that suitably icy expression. The final scene where the bank robbery occurs, it is marvellously directed because Mehta just shows the feet of the people in the bank and as they walk about quickly or run, you know that there is panic and chaos in the bank. And I liked the imagery that Mehta constantly uses with water and money. I don't quite know what the significance of water was meant to be. But I think it was supposed to represent humanity. The water can be clean but just like Arjun Rampal's character, it can also become dirty when mixed with other elements like sand or mud. It can also become cold and turn into ice (the imagery of ice is also used in this movie) signifying the cold feelings of the hero.
But the movie is not without its flaws. I found the dream sequence of Manisha's character very laughable. What on earth was she wearing?! She wears something very weird, which unfortunately turns her into a laughing stock. In this scene, the movie began to get a little too pretentious and too arty. So many things were happening and you have to admit that the sets were a bit dodgy. And the music, though sweet (like "Nanimaa") is almost forgettable. I like two songs Seep Main Moti and Humko Pyaar Hai and they have very good picturisations. I liked Jaan Leva a lot too but my craze for that song has worn off.
