Charas: A Joint Effort

This movie had it all, action, adventure, thrills and great dialogues. Irfan was as usual top-notch. Songs were entertaining and the plot was intelligently developed by the director. The cast and director have made this film from their heart. But as expected these type of Hindi movies go unnoticed by indians abroad and the west. They only like to watch yash chopra's-Johar-Khan processed so-called emotional family dramas. But which are actually d-grade romantic chick flicks. because of these movies, bollywood is laughed upon and no taken seriously by the west! Well done tigmanshu, irfan and co, after haasil you have delivered again... keep trying, hopefully next time will yield better box office gains.

From the cast and look of the movie, this seemed to be another one of those "harsh look at reality" films. This isn't your typical underworld/mafia movie, though. It looks at a new aspect of the underworld--drug smuggling in a specific region of India which supposedly produces the best heroine in the world. You're probably thinking, yeah, and that's supposed to make it any less boring? I actually thought this was an extremely intelligent film.

The plot becomes more and more complex and convoluted as the movie goes on.

It's an interesting search of a British botanist who has been declared missing ever since he entered the notorious jungle taken over by a gangster known as Policeman (who also has a very interesting story), where grows the deadly plant. Songs are lame, except for the title song. Most people will not like this movie, but if you're up for such a fare, you might want to check it out.

Ok we live in a country where a masterpiece like charas is rated 5.3 on imdb. There is a monologue in the film, "this country is being joked with". But actually this country is a joke itself.

Irfan's best performance till date, uday & jimmy correcting their mistake of mohabbatein, the most detailed movie on indian drugs ever made. This is a pure classic in all aspects. Dhulia's best as a director. Released much ahead of time. Could be a gem for ott viewing. Released along with another classic Khakee & both failed to create that impact what it was made. But did they actually fail? No, Humanity failed in 2004.

Timangshu Dhulia, in my opinion, is one of the more talented filmmakers in the Bollywood jungle. His debut film, Haasil, was quite an honest attempt at showing prevalence of student politics in northern India. It suffered from shoddy editing but the intensity of the director and the actors were enough to hold the movie together. Charas has the same intensity from the actors, particularly Irfan (my favourite). But it seems Dhulia is trying to make a noveau Hare Rama Hare Krishna, what with the choppy editing and the hippie feel to the film. There are moments in Charas when I was completely engrossed and then the next minute the tension falls flat. It was a classic case of so near yet so far.

This interpretation for the time it portrays is somewhat what was, no complaints though. Beautifully captured.