Yes, that’s ROAD for you. This is the latest flick from the house of Ram Gopal Varma, directed by Rajat Mukherjee, who previously gave us the Eminently Forgettable Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya. Thankfully, this one has a much better storyline than the former, and a fair measure of technical chutzpah thrown in. Alas, this one also has a lot more Vulgarity, reminding us of R. G. Varma’s own experiment gone wrong, Daud.
Road, to it’s advantage, has one of the most unconventional and novel storylines ever tried on the Indian screen. Its devoid of the usual Poor Boy-Rich Girl(or Vice-versa) routine, the same old villians and rude fathers. Instead, what we have here are a couple of people(Vikram Oberoi, Antara Mali) who are free in their thoughts and radical in their thinking. They decide, after understanding that the girl’s father is opposed to the marriage, to elope in their car and decide to marry secretly in the boy’s ’’Haveli’’. Thus starts a journey, which ends up as a Nightmare. They agree to help a hitch-hiker, played quite superbly by Manoj Bajpai, who’s a Psycho and keep’s irritating them thru’out their journey. At a point, he get’s crazy and tell’s Vikram to get off and drives off with Antara. Vikram somehow get’s back to the car with the help of a truck driver and they drive away. But Manoj returns with the same truck and trashes their car from the back. The couple drive into a hotel and sing a ’’HOT SENSUAL VULGAR’’ song. Next morning, when they are about to leave, Manoj emerges from the dicky of the vehicle ( this is where the movie gets bit Weird, like how did Manoj get into their vehicle and stay on overnight in the dicky?!) and yet again, tries to shoot Vikram and drives away with Antara. Vikram gets anxious and calls up the police. They search for the vehicle, but Manoj has another plan altogether. They hop into another vehicle, kill that owner and out him into their vehicle and drive away. From now on, the movie concentrates on Manoj and his one-sided love story with Antara, and Vikram’s rather long and tedious search for his lover. Yawwn!! The second half especially gets little imaginary and boring, going into unnecessary and uninteresting situations like Manoj’s dream song, Antara’s complete lack of emotions and resistence after being separated from her lover. Rajneesh Thakur has tried hard to work up a cocktail of some Hollywood movies, we should not belittle his intention or effort, but it could have been much better.
Rajat is helped immensely by the technical team that has worked in this enterprise.
Cinematography by Sudip Chatterjee is Incredibly Agile and captures the arid environment of Rajasthan to perfection.
Background Music by Amit Mohile is Wonderfully Innovative.
Sound Design by Arun Nambiar is also Crystal Clear and one of the best this year.
Editing by Chandan Arora is similar to what he did in Company and it works Beautifully, Crisp and Accelarating the Tempo whenever needed.
Music by Sandesh Shandilya is really Different, its Innovative at places, Weird in others. The song ’’Road ke har mod pe’’ is especially Marvellous and its placement is PERFECT!!!!
Costume Design is really HORRENDOUS and one really wonders why they needed a Costume designer to do this rubbish...even I can tear clothes into a thousand pieces!!!
Rajat Mukherjee does a Decent job with the Direction but for God’s Sake, please stop this Obscenity and Different but Weird way of presenting songs. Every song in the movie has Antara Mali wearing the SKIMPIEST of clothes, exposing a lot of flesh. Yughh!! Disgusting. He has a lot to learn from other experienced film-makers. But one thing is for sure, he is improving.
Vikram Oberoi does an Excellent job in the role assigned to him. Antara Mali does not but expose her body, much to the displeasure of the viewers. Also, she looks too old. Manoj Bajpai is the real Star here, giving a sparkling performance as the Mad Mad guy. Still confuses me!!
All in all, Road is an Adventure, worth Atleast one viewing. Anyone against obscenity and liking the usual love mush, please stay away. Don’t expect too much and u won’t be disappointed.