Kal: Yesterday and Tomorrow (2005) User Reviews

Good thriller

[mstash-2 · 7/10 · 3 December 2007]

I picked this movie up since it had Chitranghda in it,thank God i did!It is one of those rare films you find nowadays in Indian movie scene. The movie doesn't want to be artistic,its commercial entertainer though the attention to the story and characters are commendable.

Through out the movie we are made to feel warmth,pity and resentment towards all the protagonists.The way the pieces of the puzzle are made to fall in place makes one wonder if anyone was good ever or where they just misguided! As the protagonists go through the ordeal,especially Chitranghda's where she made to deal with her issues and pick sides (and pick she does) is good!

Just OK - could have been much better

[kausix777 · 6/10 · 2 January 2011]

Yes, Chitrangada looks good in this. Yes, Smriti has acted well in this. Yes, Shiny has acted OK and not screamed in anger as much as in his other films.

With a plot this interesting (A likes B but gets married to C where C and B were college friends as well; A spends a night at B's while C gets killed; Suspicion points towards A and, later, on C's family as well as the A-B combine), I feel the movie could have ended as a much better product if the characters had been given time to develop.

I just could not digest the poor editing. The editor might think his work is "slick" and ends in a "fast-paced" product. However, in my opinion, the editing spoiled the movie and many times after a "quick- snip" shot, I found myself trying to remember the previous scenes to understand what exactly happened in the current scene. Besides, I don't understand why they kept many unnecessary slow scenes at all (this editor's "skills" could have helped) while major parts were cut.

Overall, a good premise but poor execution ends up as an average product.

Confused characters & twisted plot

[samrethsingh · 1/10 · 24 March 2006]

I have to admit that at many times in the fast paced thriller, Kal, I was the irritating guy in the cinema hall who has totally lost the plot and keeps asking why someone on screen is killing someone else that was their best friend in the previous scene. You know the type, the irritating retards that we shush loudly.

But strangely I didn't get shushed loudly. I attribute this less to the laissez faire of the NID auditorium than to the fact that many around me were genuinely a few pages behind the plot as well. If Ruchi Narain wanted this to be one those 'intellectual' films loved by 'film buffs' where the audience has to 'actively participate' in the film I think she succeeded spectacularly. The endless twists and back-flips in the plot left me flummoxed for a good part of the film, but the lead character, Bhavana, was supremely easy on the eyes, so I soldiered on.

Bhavana is an attractive young woman whose boyfriend Tarun Haksar, ditches her for her rich best friend Maya Jalan and they get married. It is after this point that the plot gets a little hazy in my memory. Bhavana brings another man home and they have just about started to get hot and bothered when Tarun turns up in her house, sloshed out of his mind. The faux pas plays itself out and the pretty young thing goes to her photo-shoot the next day (as a photographer if you please…) But her estranged best friend Maya gets killed the same night while Maya's husband (and Bhavana's ex) Tarun is puking his guts up into Bhavana's toilet bowl.

The police investigates and the finger of suspicion is pointed at Tarun. Apparently he wanted to get his hands on the Jalan family lucre. Tarun goes to jail and is subsequently thrown off a third floor jail terrace in a fight with other inmates. This puts him into a coma, where he stays until the final act of the saga. Bhavana first testifies in favour of Tarun and then pulls a Zahira Sheikh and reverses her testimony. Another friend follows suit and then first kills someone inconsequential and then gets killed himself. The finger of blame shifts towards the late Maya's uncle Rajesh Jalan now. This old gent is keeping the news of Maya's death away from her father, the man who earned the Jalan family millions. The resourceful R. Jalan is reprinting newspapers to keep old man Jalan in the dark. A birthday party is thrown in the late Maya's honour for no apparent reason. At some point Bhavana is also accused of colluding with her ex-boyfriend in Maya's murder.

To cut a 120 minute long story short and to absolve all the accused of doubt, Maya killed herself. (and who would blame her?) Maya wanted to shed the light on some underhanded dealings that her family was involved with that her husband had unearthed in a sting that would have made Tarun Tejpal proud. At the last moment Tarun (Haksar not Tejpal) balked at the prospect of living in abject poverty and decided to quietly forget about his ideals. Maya then takes the moral high road and kills herself.

Into this melee is thrown Bhavana, who is trying to get on with her life sans Tarun. The premise has great potential as Bhavana's character is someone who is unwittingly sucked into the crisis of an ex who is no longer part of her life. Maya is someone who steals her best friend's boyfriend on one hand but kills herself when her husband refuses to expose her family on the other. If there hadn't been so many extraneous characters and plot twists to deal with (not to mention the de rigueur number of song and dance sequences) the main characters would have gotten more time to develop and we would have gotten more insight into the way they behave with each other. But in its present form the characters, including but not limited to Tarun Haksar seem to be (if I may use the term) assholes.