There are thrillers that give you the chills. But there are those you’d like to forget the moment you’re out of the auditorium. 36 CHINA TOWN belongs to the latter category!Twenty-five minutes into the film, and I knew how this disaster, which has been marketed as a suspense thriller, would end!
It’s about three couples who find themselves in a complicated situation.
The suspects:
1.Shahid and Kareena
They are a happy couple, until tragedy strikes.
2.Johnny Lever and Tanaaz Lal
Their marriage anniversary celebration turns sour.
3.Paresh Rawal and Payal Rohatgi
He is a gambler, she hates him for that. And they catch the police’s eye.
4.Upen Patel
The biggest Casanova in China Town; his flirtatious nature proves to be his undoing.
Crime-buster
Akshaye Khanna as detective Karan is the one who solves the case.
Shahid Kapur is a struggling actor wheras Kareena Kapoor is ditched by her boyfriend just before her wedding. They are strangers to each other until fate brings them together with a promise for them to make some money.
The money is the reward Shahid and Kareena hope to get for reuniting a lost child to his mother. The mother is Esha Kappor, a high-profile woman who owns a casino She has lost her 5-yr-old son and offers huge reward money for anyone who finds and brings back her son...
Shahid and Kareena go to Esha’s bungalow number 36 in China Town to reunite her lost son with her. But upon reaching her place at midnight, they find she has been murdered.What happens next?
Firstly the most basic and intrinsic problem with this film is that it’s made from such a rotten script that even Martin Scorcese couldn’t make this film half way entertaining. You could easily trust a class four student to write a better essay than this script .The film is filled with so many such ridiculous and brainless scenes that you’ve tuned off barely fifteen minutes into the film.The biggest drawback of 36 China Town is climax which relies on the age-old concept of will and properties. It is difficult to comprehend why writer had to use such an old formula for creating the base of a thriller .
When I see a film like 36CT I pray and I hope that somebody has the good sense to make it compulsory for every actor have at least some basic training before he or she is allowed to work on screen. Watching Shahid in this film -- -- is as painful as pulling out your nostril hair.
The portions that are meant to be funny are so juvenile that you’re reminded of the jokes you cracked way back in school. The dialogues in the film are so embarrassingly childish that when you do actually laugh, you’re not laughing with them, you’re laughing at them.
Performances are weak. Shahid Kapoor is not convincing in his role. He needs to quit the industry soon because he cannot act and looks out of place in this flick. He lacks the screen presence and charisma that lead actors should possess.Kareena goes the glamour route and looks better than her past films. Her acting is an improvement on her past performances but she gets lost somewhere in the second half. Upen is a big let down. Of the rest, Akshay is average at best, Paresh is ok and Johnny Lever actually comes off as funny in some scenes.
I have to confess that I’ve never been a fan of Abbas Mastan’s movies. I found their social drama Chori Chori Chupke Chupke very loud and very regressive. I thought Taarzan was just plain stupid. Khiladi was completely predictable and Baagizar was too melodramatic. So I didn’t exactly go into 36 China Town with any great expectations. But what do you say about a director who extracts a bad performance out of Akshaye Khanna? Because Akshaye Khanna in my opinion, is one of the most talented actors today.
Somewhere in the second half of the film, I dozed off for about 15 minutes, and when I woke up again, I noticed that nothing much had really happened while I was knocked out. 36 China Town goes on and on and on without any concern for your patience. I’m willing to sponsor director Abbas Mastan on a holiday to a breezy hill station where they can get some fresh air and clear their heads. Because 36CT is like a bad dream, it’s the best way to punish an enemy, in fact it’s the perfect punishment for the writer and director themselves. Just tie them to the seats and make them watch three shows of their own film back to back.
To sum up 36 China Town is Weak in content and a weaker climax will curtail its prospects to a great extent.
Bottomline is: skip this movie? Yes , Unless you are a die-hard Johnny Lever fan, yeah, pretty much. He is hilarious. He is the best thing about the movie