Amitabh Bachchan was never a stranger to the Indian silver-screen. And he will never ever be! Evidently, he was no stranger in Apoorva Lakhia’s ‘Ek Ajnabee’. But the film had two strangers. One is: the actor in Arjun Rampal. Yah! For the first time, since he stepped into Bollywood, I felt the actor in him absolutely promising. We can discuss more of Arjun later; first, let’s talk about the film….
Tale of Three Men….:
He was almost a dead man. His past was a nightmare; but he never came out of the nightmare and ended up being a drunkard. Physically, death never came near him, but he never wished to live…. until a pair of innocent eyes changed his heart. And he began to live………
There was this man, who loves his wife and his daughter more than himself. And to carry on their life luxuriously, he had to manage his dead father-in-law’s debt-sunk company. He tried hard but ended up having no other option than to risk his daughter’s life….
He saved his colleague when he was in the army. That was for his emotional reasons. But his service in the army did not bring him what he desired the most…. money. And for money, he doesn’t even mind putting, in risk, the life he once saved….
…. And a Little Angel:
Nothing can be more magical than the touch of an Angel. As the tender touch of her fingers churn a soft melody from the piano, we hear her mother call: ‘Anamika!’ And as her face turns to us, our eyes touch Angelic Beauty. Or is it the vice-versa?
The Film:
Dealing with the backdrop of ‘kidnapping’, the film focuses more on the giving its characters a stylish look. It does not boast of any reality-show. It was made solely as entertainer. And it does work out; may not be for everyone, but, atleast for folks like me!
The film is a compositeness of brilliantly executed scenes and an array of evident loop-holes. In the first-half, the brilliant moments dominate; whereas in the second half, the loop-holes get audibly pronounced.
Watch Amitabh’s eyes in the scene where he sits beside Perizaad Zorabian sharing his anguish over Rucha’s death, a few seconds after which, he says: ‘Mein ye sab khatam kar doonga’ (I will end all this!). Awesome! Drilling further into the scene, you can realize that for the first time ever, Amar Mohile has utilized silence effectively in his background score. The sound engineering in this film was brilliant. The cinematography and editing were of high quality standards.
Amitabh Bachchan was unanimously the most impressive of the cast; but along with the star-actor’s able performance, I would credit the length of role given to him. None really got more than even half the length which Amitabh got. May be that was a business calculation!
But the actor who impressed me most is Arjun Rampal. There are two reasons for it: firstly, this is one of the most stylish performances in recent times and secondly, I never expected Arjun Rampal to act. He delivered a performance beyond my expectation and probably beyond anyone’s expectation. His dialogue delivery was perfect and so was his body-language. Watch him stand before Amitabh in the climax scene. Had the contrast in the characterizations been lesser, I felt that Arjun could have dominated the Amitabh.
Playing the role of the kid named, Anamika, Baby Rucha is the most lovable part of the film. I wonder if it was her angelic look or the strong characterization, which impressed me; or was it both? Watch her yourself and decide!
Other characters have done adequately: Perizaad Zorabian playing Anamika’s mother, Vikram Chatwal playing Anamika’s father, Dayashankar Pandey, Akhilendra Misra, etc.
Apoorva Lakhia’s direction was good in portions, esp during the Amitabh-Rucha episodes in the first half. The execution for those scenes was very mature. But, on the flip side, there were many unnecessary sequences like the gay-kiss, which the director could have avoided. The screenplay was good. It is to say that it wasn’t bad! Personally, I felt that rather than a one-man show by Amitabh, there could have been a balance between the three characters (Amitabh’s, Vikram Chatwal’s and Arjun’s). On a broader gauge, that would tell how a sector of men protect the women and how the women are utilized by the other sectors of men.
The Last Line:
The second stranger I found in this film was: an effective cameo in Abhishek Bachchan (never in any of his cameo roles, did Abhishek look so perfect).