More than 20 years in the business and yet he(anil kapoor! who else?) has so much preserved within him! Well I don’t mean that he hasn’t displayed enough of his antics till now. In fact he is one of the rare actors who have delivered such a wide range of portrayals. Remember (Ram Lakhan, Ishwar, Meri Jung, Mr.India, Pukaar etc…..).Though in those ventures , the contribution of the directors were also in favour in him, like Subhash Ghai, Shekhar Kapoor, Rajkumar Santoshi. But what if a 20 something newcomer comes to him with an unusual and experimental script, which demands a 10/10 concentration on his part? Should he agree? And more important would he be able to succeed?
The answer is “YES”. He not only succeeds but gives his life to the role of Ravi Patwardhan, a small time editing studio owner, apart from owning two lovely children and an utterly suspicious wife Sheila(Suchitra Krishnamurti ), who can’t bear the presence of a beautiful secretary Reena(Nandana Sen) in her husband’s life. She makes it a daily routine to nag him whenever he is home. She does every possible act to convert any normal husband’s life worse than hell! And since our hero is very much normal, so his life is actually on the verge of conversion. One day Ravi just couldn’t hold his emotions and raises his hand on her, only to be replied with an equally hard slap. It’s then he looses all his control and slaps her hard enough to make her not able to stand on her feet, but fate had something more for him as Sheila‘s head got hit by the cot and she falls flat on the floor. Ravi feels sorry for her and tries to wake her up, but he couldn’t, because she is already dead!!!
After recovering from the instant shock, he asks Reena for her car, packs the body in a large carton and throws it from a cliff. Very soon Sheila’s disappearance comes into light. A complaint is lodged in the police and enter into the scenario inspector Tejpal (Boman Irani), a genius food analyst (considering the no. of times he is shown eating in the film!!) , besides being a shrewd cop. He instantly discards all ideas of the case being a suicide, and starts on the idea of Ravi as a convict. Very soon he finds about Reena’s car. Ravi can’t bear Reena to get into any sort of trouble, so he tells her everything and advices her to go to the cops. She on the contrary lies to them and subsequently helps Ravi to elope from the city. Getting annoyed over this newly developed closeness between Reena and Ravi, her boyfriend (Rajesh Tandon) confronts her. Reena being a loyal ‘gf’ tells him everything, but since he is also an equally loyal (or rather jealous!) ‘gf’. He informs police about Ravi’s deeds. Finally after a long and exhausting chase, Ravi is caught and the movie ends!!
( with feel-good dialogues like police later agrees with him and try to see that he will be getting minimum punishment)..
There is not much of a storyline actually in the film. The whole film relies on execution and performances. Though the former one is tight enough but it’s the later one which is the soul of the film.
PERFORMANCES:
The film belongs to Anil Kapoor and he couldn’t have done better than this. He has changed his entire looks and mannerism for this film. He has reduced his weight and his body also doesn’t looks the same (like the macho one shown in “musafir”). His reactions immediately after his wife’s death were unbelievably real, while his emotional outburst at the climax of the movie is another scene to watch out for. He has been always near to the top in the declining period of Amitabh Bachchan , but unfortunately he didn’t ever made it to that. But is it necessary to give 2-3 hits every year or rather to give a super hit every 4 years. What about an actor who has always been sincerely honest about his profession and delivered so many niche performances? If our box-office isn’t able to provide him a top slot then never mind, because such actors used to live in people’s hearts and I don’t think that’s anything less than being at the top.
Now coming to another eagerly awaited role, Suchitra Krishnamurthi aka Kapoor’s. No doubt, we all adored the gorgeous and refreshing anna(of kabhi haan kabhi naa) , very much and considering the fact that she is returning after such long sabbatical , we were eagerly waiting for her, but much to our disappointment she has been rendered a role that has nothing much to perform except screaming at her husband and delivering repetitive lines like: “ Ruk kyon Gaye ! Maaro! Maarte kyon hahi! Maaro!!” Suchitra, we cine goers are still in awe of you and definitely we expected better than this from you.
Boman Irani , the man is second ‘ox’ of this bullock cart. He has been his witty best in the movie and his character seems like ragging the person, when he interrogates someone. However he has been ably supported with terrific dialogues, specially the one-liners. But then dialogues without actor are not of much worth of. It has been only for him that we find a reason to smile in an otherwise not too smiley venture.
Nandana Sen is at her revealing best (Hello! Kya hua !! I am talking about emotions, yaar ). I couldn’t understand why she has to give that infamous scene in “Tango Charlie” and I also can’t understand, why she has given this ‘towel scene’ in this movie .Well I would be lying if I say that I didn’t tore apart my eyes, when that scene came , but was it really needed in this sort of movie?
Rajesh Tandon was just average in the role of Reena’s ‘bf’. Another soothing experience was watching the two cute child artists in Ravi’s children’s role. About rest of the actors(not many!) there isn’t much to talk about.
THE REST:
Now let’s welcome the new young talent, the director Jijy Philip. As more and more reviews will come, u will hear contradictory comments about the plot and the director. But we must accept this fact that the guts, he has shown by choosing an unconventional script can’t be easily neglected. He has successfully managed to extract outstanding performance by the entire cast. In the latest trend of giving chances to their assistants by most of the noted directors in the industry, Ramgopal Verma is no doubt ahead of them all. It would be interesting see how another of his protégé Rohit Jugraj fares with his talk-of-the-town Mohit Ahlawat.
In the beginning this movie was scheduled to be made with two different endings, with two titles. “Jaanboojh Kar” & “Galti Se” , but later the producers dropped the idea. Well it has been more than enough praise in favour of the movie but in the end I would like to highlight some points where I felt a bit disappointed.
1) Suchitra Krishnamurthy, her character definitely could have been better and little more etched out.
2) The repetitive encounters (sort of mini dates!) between Reena and her boyfriend seemed to be forced in the narration.
3) Tejpal ‘s fascination with food was digestible, but the way director shows his encounters