Prologue before the review – I saw Halla bol with out any expectations in my mind. I had heard that it is a sort movie which wanted to excite people of this Country raise voice against Corruption. I also heard that it took off from Jessica lal case. It also had decent performances from the lead stars. Now with this little bit of info in my mind, I went off to see the movie.
Review of the movie
Writer Director – Raj Kumar Santoshi
Cast – Ajay Devagn Vidya Balan Pankaj Kapur
Opening few shots depict the life of a major movie star, his star status and how much he is able run the movie industry on his own terms. He is shown to be at a stage where he has no body except him and his success living with him. In the opening scenes it self it stuck me that in spite of being a very well intended movie, the director had some what lost the class, the maturity and the control over the scenes which he had in his earlier movies. The scenes are portrayed in a rather amateurish way. Be it the scene describing Sameer khan the star or his adds. I don’t think adds that our stars do are as cheap as it is portrayed in the movie. It seems you are watching 90s movie were every thing looked so filmy. When times were we are producing decent stuff now days it seems silly for a director of Raj kumar Santoshi’s caliber to go back to 90s. This feeling of Déjà vu didn’t ever leave all through out 2 hours plus running time of the movie.
Story is about a top film actor Sameer khan who becomes a witness to a girl’s murder in a high profile party. The convicts are sons of a minister and liquor Baron. How they are convicted in this case forms the core of the movie. I will not delve more into the movie as I always think people should go and watch any movie with out any clear cut idea of the story. Now coming into the story one major draw back in the story was, it was too predictable. As I mentioned above also, the movie gave a feeling of Déjà vu. You could predict what could happen in the next scene and scene after through out the movie. Imagine Ajay peeing in the ministers’ house and saying Mere Paas Gurda hai. I don’t know what director wanted to portray by making Ajay mouthing these dialogs.
The dialogs through out the movie, like the one I have mentioned above, were very trite and never really appealed to me. But alas there were some small silver linings in an otherwise very bleak film -
1) The scene were Vidya balan gives a fitting reply to the Journalists
2) The one where Pankaj Kapur says Voh Insaan hi kya jo badal jai
3) The one when Pankaj Kapur says Hathyaar chood diya hai istemaal karna bhoola nahin.
4) The scene were Ajay Devgan chucks out Tushaar Kapur from his film is also decently handled
These dialogs as well as the scenes have a certain amount of quality in them, some thing which is missing in the major part of the movie. The Dialogs as well as screen play on a whole, could have been better. About the music, lesser said the better as it was pretty shoddy. Songs in spite of being quite well placed sounded not all good to me.
Performances according to me were the only silver lining in this other wise shoddy film. What I thought is all actors in spite of having ill written characters tried to do there best and were successful to some extent. Ajay Devgan, Vidya Balan and Pankaj Kapur did the best they could have done, in spite of being given some very stupid dialogs and weak scenes. But as they say performances alone can’t save the movie if movie it self is not that good, hold very well with this film.
On the whole it was pretty weak effort from a very efficient director. I hope he sees his own Legend of bhagat Singh or even Khakhi to know movie is not merely having some hard hitting scenes and noble intentions. It should have a strong screen play and well written scenes which I think this movie lacked.