Zinda*1/2
Genre: Thriller
Released: Jan 12, 2005
Approx Running Length: 2hrs. 5 min
Director: Sanjay Gupta
Starring: Sanjay Dutt, John Abraham, Mahesh Manjrekar, Lara Dutta, Celina Jaitley, Raj Zutsi
( Exceptional, Brilliant, Good, Average, * Avoidable)
Don’t let your kids watch this one. They may form their own distorted picture of the world around them after watching this movie that is far from normal and distant from truth.
Special Advice to boys: If you like your girlfriend or wife hiding her face in your arms, this may be the movie to take her out to.
Statutory Warning for girls: It is not for faint-hearted. Don’t scream. Just close your eyes when the images tend to be gory. Don’t let your boyfriend’s plan succeed:)
This movie is surely not a scene by scene copy of the original Korean flick. If it were, it would have been more eerrie and much better.
Enough! Huh?
In short: This movie is for those who like different cinema despite it dragging a bit, disappointing in the end and digressing from the main point at times.
Highlights are the Letdowns too:
Different and never-seen-before presentation. I am sure that almost all of the Indians would be unaware of the Korean movie OldBoy which is the inspiration of this movie. The story has been changed a lot to suit the Indian audience but that has been the undoing of this movie as well.
Sanjay Dutt’s character fits him like a glove. Only he could have played this role with elan and he proves once again why I keep calling him the most under-rated actor in hindi film industry. But his character has not been etched properly. His mannerism keeps vaccilating between the one who has become a monster and the one who has been wronged and is clueless. If he was supposed to be both, the screeplay writers need to do their homework better.
Background score: The most of it has been copied from the movie ’Paycheck’ by John Woo(A very good movie. Watch it if you find a DVD). The original tracks by Strings (Yeh hai meri kahani) and Shibani Kashyap (Zinda hoon main) are good.
Camera and Lighting: It is brilliant in most part of the movie. Light tends to get a bit too gloomy - you would just want to pick up a remote and increase the brightness; only if it was possible at a multiplex.
In the name of stylization, the camera moves a bit too furiously at times. In the climax, the camera is shaky while the movie tavels its flash-back path. It is fine to make it different from the actual track but why have it shaky? Give it a sepia effect if you please.
Overall, near perfect camera and lighting.
The true letdowns:
- Screenplay
1.1. The story begins on a distasteful note with Mahesh Manjrekar and just-married Sanjay Dutt trying to prove a point or two about their friendship. Just doesn’t leave any impact. It doesn’t really gives their friendship a good standing which I am sure the screenplay writers wanted.
Also, Lara Dutta’s track is neither humorous nor believable. Dutt’s affinity for Lara is also a hurridely conceived thought and should either have been built onto or should have been left alone. Why do our protagonists always have to end up with a love interest?
1.2. The end is awful.
1.3. John is just not believable as a multi-millionaire who keeps walking the streets after a guy. Not that he has not acted well but just that his character is least convincing.
1.4. Someone needs to tell Sanjay that a few brilliant scenes here and there don’t make a good movie. The director loses his focus midway through this gloomy journey. I am not sure who the target audience of this movie is.
Limiting factors
It is gory and gloomy. It is not for everyone and as we have seen recently, a movie has done well when
It is a family movie. Lots of songs and dances but where you can watch anything with everyone.
It is a sex flick with a consistent story line - need not be good but consistent.
It is a movie that makes you cry and laugh and cry and laugh and cry...
Unfortunately, Zinda does not do any of these aforementioned things. It should be a major disaster at the box-office once the hype settles down.
For the technically inclined
Let us first know what the original story was. Story of the Korean flick OldBoy: A man who is happily married and has a girl child is doing well in his life. On fateful day, he is kidnapped and is put in confinement for 15 years. He trains himself to fight the unknown enemy inside the lockup. When he is finally released, he finds himself in the middle of his city with some cash and a mobile phone which the antagonist uses to contact him. He impresses a cook on his way to finding his way through to the man who tortued him for so long. With the help of this cook and the hints dropped by the bad-guy, he reaches him.
Needless to say that he fights with many people and kills many on his way. He is brutal in his manners (plucking tooth with hammer) and is more like a monster who is out to get his target.
When finally he gets to meet the bad boy, there is high drama and the reason is disclosed. Protagonist had spread the rumour of the bad guy’s incest with his sister which ultimately lead to his sister’s suicide. Now, the lead’s daughter is in trouble and it is because of his tongue. He offers to cut his tongue and he actually does it but does the psychotic bad guy forgive him?
Hindi Adaptation Zinda
15 become 14 and 5 becomes 4! Child is not born yet. Cook is made into an aimless and irritating cab-driver. Action scenes are kept intact. Tongue slitting is omitted. Tooth plucking is kept intact. Incest does not go well with the audience so it is adapted as a practical joke on the sister which helpless brother watches.
The flaws in the adapted story
Let us start from the first scene. The friendship track is boring and does not contribute to the story even a single bit.
Loose ends - software engineer in early 90’s being such a big shot when the world didn’t even know of the Y2K bug. Shahrukh khan? Who? Salman was a bigger name in early 90’s. Forgiven!
The supposed ’villian’ nurtures the supposed innocent man’s kid in mother’s womb. How does he know that it is going to be a girl child? His plans would have failed utterly if it turned out to be a baby boy. I think in an attempt to change the original script, the screeplay writer just overlooked the original writer’s intelligence where the girl child is already born. Forgiven!
Incest would not have done the trick for the desi audience but a practical joke leading to someone’s suicide? A school that is as progressive to call its alumni, record their speeches and put on their websites to be seen as streaming video doesn’t really have a system to know that a practical joke has gone on for too long in the schoool? A boy walk with a sticker on his back ’Meri behen 15 rupaiyeh main deti hai’ (my sister is available for 15 bucks) and no teacher happened to notice it. Only his sister at home notices it. Why did she not go to school? Why didn’t anyone ask her why she was not going to school? Forgiven!
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