Halla Bol

I like to start my reviews with the things I like about a film, so here they are-

The 2 things I liked about the film-

When Indrajeet Chanda gives the offer to Siddhu to join them at the swimming pool, the reaction of Siddhu…vow man, instead of telling him in a loud repetitive speech “you are just a kid in front of me…” he just starts to play with his cheeks the way we play with kids and leaves. Man! This was a novel way. Good acting, good use of gestures without words.

Another thing I liked was the use of Dushyant Kumar’s provocative Gazal “Ho gayi hai peer parbat si…” the gusto was good. Enjoyable!

Now what didn’t work for me:

1. Stereotypical one dimensional black and white characters- the characters of the film were outdated, the dialogues lengthy and monotonous and situations very predictable and repetitive.

Sameer Khan who is drunk with his success and has no remorse when he is insensitively hurts his wife or relatives; suddenly changes by an incident. We never know his journey. We never know why this “black and white” change was. There is no place where we see a human with his human emotions and fears. There is either a bastard who is full of his success and power and happily exploits women or we see this holy saint who can go to any length to have justice for a girl who was not related to him in any way but a momentary acquaintance.

The wife Sneha is the holly courageous woman who is against her husband when he is bad, and joins him when he is good. She is flawless, virtuous. We never see even a glimpse of her life. We don’t know if this success of her husband has affected her in any way. What does she do when he is on shootings? Does her lifestyle have also changed! Nothing!

Siddhu is the courageous bandit who turns to theatre when he sees a performance of Harishchandra. Like a God, he protects victimised people. He comes to Sameer’s rescue whenever he needs him. His speeches are long and monotonous. He talks about justice all the time, but we never see him having a drop of remorse on the life he led. He must have killed innocent people! Or was he the Robin Hood!

The villains Gayakwad, Narayan, Mr. Chadda, the caricatures of Vijay Malya and this Art of living guy (I have forgotten their names in film), the sons of Gayakwad and Mr. Chadda are absolute black people. We never see them doing any thing motivated by long plan or strategy. They are merely defending themselves against Sameer Khan throughout the film and goes out of their way for this. They are such “regular villains” that we never find them interesting or engaging. We know they ultimately are going to be defeated and we never fear for the protagonist.

1. Plot was very contrived.

The film is about an actor Sameer Khan who makes it in Bombay Film Industry the hard way. When the film starts he is at the height of his popularity. He is drunk with the illusions that his success will never last and has become promiscuous. He is not faithful to his Guru Siddhu, his father or his wife.

One night in a party he witnesses a murder of an air hostess Rashmi who had come in the party with her sister Ritu. The murderers are the sons of a politician and a business tycoon.

As his conscience is not letting him live peacefully de decides to open his mouth against the injustice. After long trials and errors the public starts to support him and the criminals have to face the consequences. The good wins, the bad is punished.

1. Third act- Most of the films fail in their third act this film also fails miserably. Till 10 minutes before the climax, see the audacity of protagonist and his struggle. We see how he is fighting alone in the world and no body is standing by him, then suddenly as if they wanted to rap it the “Awam” (Public) is awakened. They start to support him. And in climax seen as if Convocation is going on all the people involved in the case are punished. Even the people who had given wrong testimonies are punished. All bad forces are conquered by the hero.

The only question here is “Do we buy his?” I don’t know about others but this romantic story of a hero who goes out of his way to stand by a virtue and goes through the ordeals, stands by his moral and later everything lost gets restored and he gets much more, is not digestible to me.

1. The most original “Dhamaki” of Hindi Film Industry “Agali baar main puchunga nahi ki bathroom kithar hai?”