KAAL
rating : 7.5 /10
Director : Soham Shah
Writer : Soham Shah
Producers : Shah Rukh Khan & Karan Johar
Cast : Ajay Devgan , Vivek Oberoi , John Abraham ,
Lara Dutta , Esha Deol
Banner : Red Chilles Entertainment & Dharma Productions
Genre : Thriller
Release Date : 29.04.2005
PLOT:
Group of fun loving youngsters and wild life researchers land up in Orbit park and people end up dying one by one . They try desperately to get out of the jungle. Ajay devgan is a man who lives in the forest who comes to rescue them.
CRITIQUE:
After seeing the trailers of kaal , I was sitting in the theater expecting a movie like Jurassic park with the replacement of Dinosaurs with tigers but I was wrong...A BIG TIME. It was not an animal based thriller although it looked like it for 3 quarters of the movie.The movie starts off great with Nation’s one of the biggest star (in this case one of the producer) dancing in an item song called ’’Kaal Dhamaal’’.Having said Shahrukh is dancing in a song at the very begining of the film when the titles roll..the excitment level of the audience is at the top most level.It would require a very good script and direction to keep the interests of the people alive...Fortunately Soham had what it needed.All of the cast has been introduced very carefully in the movie, the character of each one becomes very clear at the very moment where they are introduced. The first 30 mins of the movie moves showing how Vivek & John ’s characters meet in the jungle. After that people associated with the group keep on disappearing one by one. To be exact the first 45 min goes on just like an build up for things to come.Occasionally there is a green vision coming & going before the disappearence of the people. You just can’t sit there without comparing some of the goings of the movie with hollywood flicks like ’’ The Blair witch project’’, ’’The predator’’and a bunch of other hollywood horror flicks. At the moment of the film where you get to see the Tigers fully coming near the cast you will undoubtedly forget all the comparisons and get into the movie.
That part of the movie looks absolutely awesome.The cast was very brave to do that scene especially the parts where there is a tiger between the two guys and the jeep and the tiger biting the seats off eith Lara & Esha standing awfully close. These guys have guts or what?. This is the scene where Ajay Devgan gets introduced step by step with the awesome theme music playing in the backround and the tigers move away back into the forest. At this point of the movie only five of the group is alive.Intemission comes right there with john having a doubt on Vivek regarding the death of others. The post interval portions start off slowly with the characters emotionally talking with each other...John & vivek argueing with each other & finally deciding to leave the jungle as the forest officers suggest that the climate will get worsen and land slides may block the roads. On their way route A gets blocked , once again Ajay comes to the rescue and says he knows a short cut through the core area. On their way the driver disappears , one other member of the group ends up dead in a beautifully executed sequence. The climax begins there and takes you through a ride that you wolud’ve neither expected or seen before. The climax has been beautifully executed.Revealing anything more than this ...I think is greatly unfair to the producers and Soham .Hey they have given us a great movie to watch. I just like to mention again that the climax is awesome and different. The movie is all about following the rules.
Technically the movie has everything needed to be a thriller. The movie has been shot in beautiful scenaries. The location i.e The forest looks fresh & beautiful.The beautiful forest has been awesomely captured by Santosh Tundyil in his camera work. The sceneries look great and the thrilling scenes look thrilling.In a nutshell the cinematography is great.The main ingredients of a thriller movie are cinematography, background music and screenplay.Already I have mentioned about the script & camera work so coming to the background music... It has been composed by Salim-Sulaiman.They have done a good job with it. They provide the movie the right kind of shocking music at the right spots.Not only the background music, they have done a pretty good job in the songs too. The only two songs of the movie are Kaal dhamaal & Tauba tauba . These are placed at the begining & the end of the flick. The theme music is also awesome and only adds to the enthusiasm of the movie.
The main advantage that the movie has is it’s Length. The movie hardly goes on about 2hrs 15 min. Since it has no songs that form a part of the script the movie looks more short & crisp.Performance of all the characters are good with Vivek playing the major part. It may look as if I am praising the movie like anything.. This movie also has lot of mistakes and drawbacks but I really don’t want to spoil the movie by getting into those.
Basically the movie has all the essential things to be a good thriller and it meets the expectations.It entertains you as well . This well may become the first major hit of this year , considering the time of its release.All in all a good entertainer.