AN ARDUOUS ROADTRIPE
With a summer job in hand, and a 2 day break at my disposal, I decided to watch some movies. My journey began with the latest offering from the Varma Corporation, "Road". A good concept and story spoilt by bad handling on part of the director Rajat Mukherjee methinks. It was not bad, but could have been a lot better. Of course, the High Priestess herself has summed up pretty well her thoughts on the movie here, and so i just present a few additions of my own.
The title is apt, since like a road, the movie is smooth, slick and enjoyable in the beginning, but gets all bumpy after a while. Since the idea seems very RGV, getting Mukherjee to direct it was not a good idea. It needs a tight leash handling like Varma's. Manoj Bajpai gets more irritating with every movie, and he really needs to go in for an image makeover. Vivek Oberoi does his unshaven best, and Antara Mali looks hot. Maybe they should have a contest where viewers guess the radius of Mali's belly-button ring. The first song has both Vivek and Antara emoting with the forced zest of someone suffering from constipation. The songs are there mainly to showcase Antara's curves which the script was forced to hide in "Company". There is a song in the end featuring Bajpai, Antara and Ganesh Yadav (what the hell is he there for!!!) which attempts to be a funny song like "Woh Ladki hai Kaha" in Dil Chahata Hai, and does succeed to some degree.
One funny thing I noticed is, Vivek and Antara are listening to a song from 'Company' in the car. Now they both starred in the movie and Vivek was in the song himself, so it is funny, like Ramanand mentions here about Diane Keaton in Annie Hall
The film does have its moments, the most notable being the look that Mali gives Bajpai when he says "Tum to mujh se bhi gandi nikali". Most of the time, though, you find yourself cursing the dumbness of Oberoi's character, and it is because of this dumbness that I think Bobby Deol would have fit the role perfectly. Somehow Oberoi does not look that stupid. There are the usual RGV suspects like Sayaji Shinde, Rajpal Yadav, Makarand Deshpande ( totally miscast as a Sardar truckdriver, and makes a hash of things), etc and there are also the by now trademark digs at other filmmakers like Bhansali.
Like a one-day international gets boring between the 15th and the 40th over, this film too drags in the corresponding period.
And like many roads in India are in shambles because of improper mixing of components and bad levelling, so is this "Road". Worth one ride however.
With a summer job in hand, and a 2 day break at my disposal, I decided to watch some movies. My journey began with the latest offering from the Varma Corporation, "Road". A good concept and story spoilt by bad handling on part of the director Rajat Mukherjee methinks. It was not bad, but could have been a lot better. Of course, the High Priestess herself has summed up pretty well her thoughts on the movie here, and so i just present a few additions of my own.
The title is apt, since like a road, the movie is smooth, slick and enjoyable in the beginning, but gets all bumpy after a while. Since the idea seems very RGV, getting Mukherjee to direct it was not a good idea. It needs a tight leash handling like Varma's. Manoj Bajpai gets more irritating with every movie, and he really needs to go in for an image makeover. Vivek Oberoi does his unshaven best, and Antara Mali looks hot. Maybe they should have a contest where viewers guess the radius of Mali's belly-button ring. The first song has both Vivek and Antara emoting with the forced zest of someone suffering from constipation. The songs are there mainly to showcase Antara's curves which the script was forced to hide in "Company". There is a song in the end featuring Bajpai, Antara and Ganesh Yadav (what the hell is he there for!!!) which attempts to be a funny song like "Woh Ladki hai Kaha" in Dil Chahata Hai, and does succeed to some degree.
One funny thing I noticed is, Vivek and Antara are listening to a song from 'Company' in the car. Now they both starred in the movie and Vivek was in the song himself, so it is funny, like Ramanand mentions here about Diane Keaton in Annie Hall
The film does have its moments, the most notable being the look that Mali gives Bajpai when he says "Tum to mujh se bhi gandi nikali". Most of the time, though, you find yourself cursing the dumbness of Oberoi's character, and it is because of this dumbness that I think Bobby Deol would have fit the role perfectly. Somehow Oberoi does not look that stupid. There are the usual RGV suspects like Sayaji Shinde, Rajpal Yadav, Makarand Deshpande ( totally miscast as a Sardar truckdriver, and makes a hash of things), etc and there are also the by now trademark digs at other filmmakers like Bhansali.
Like a one-day international gets boring between the 15th and the 40th over, this film too drags in the corresponding period.
And like many roads in India are in shambles because of improper mixing of components and bad levelling, so is this "Road". Worth one ride however.
