I don’t remember having watched so many good Indian films in theatres in a span of 1 week....there was a time when I used to watch 4 indian films in a year.... ANyways Last weekend I watched 2 perfect films CHAAL & EVERYBODY SAY’S I’M FINE.... this weekend it was ENCOUNTER & MINORITY REPORT... What was best about Encounter was that I wasn’t that sure about the film...’coz some jerk has written total crap in the name of a review on REDIFF.com ... even though Khalid Mahhomed gave it 3 stars & thumbs up. So I went to the theatre excepting a shabbily made film. But the film has so much soul it just swept me over.
Agreed technically it maynot be the best film ever, but last 4 years have shown that its the script which is working in INDIA also ....What with all blockbusters flopping one after another & almost every small budget film doing good business , I wonder why r peoducers & directors still wasting their like after the stars when they should be chasing or scouting talented writers. Anyway ENCOUNTER is a low budget film which shows. And which also shows the script senbse of NAseeruddin Shah...I bet he must have fallen in love with the script. I wonder how much he charged for the film also.... There r quite a few long shots which mite make u feel u r watching a play. There r no Fast cuts & super editing here. And its works fine without the gimmicks ’coz the film has SOUL. It makes u think & feel.
Naseer plays a BAWA(Parsi) cop who kills a Sharpshooter kid in an encounter. When no one claims the kids body he tries hard to find the family of the kid with some help from a journo played by Tara Deshpande. That basically is the 1 line story of the film.
It has some powerhouse erformances by some newcomers esp the Well Built Inspector ASHOK SAWANT , the Kid LALLYA & even the NANA PATEKAR clone does a decent job. But the surprise of the film is Dilip Prabhavalkar, the veteran Marathi actor. He kicks some serious bu1tt . Tara Deshpande overacts thru the 1st half of the film esp the scenes where she keeps scolding her cameraman in front of the camera. NAseer as usual rocks the house....there’s no need to mention his acting I think...it will be an insult to his talent.
Then the songs of the film were a total waste of the film. I havn’t seen any music shop keeping cassettes of ENCOUNTER. Then why did rthe directopr send so much money on the songs which could have been used for better Post Production.
But these r nothing compared to the fine film that he has made. Kudos tro SHYAM SHROFF of SHRINGER FILMS whos supporting such films. Watch the film if u love good cinema. I dunno if it has been released outside mumbai but for Mumbaikars it will be real shame to miss this gem.