Sunday, June 29, 2014

Ek Villain (27 Jun 2014)

Cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Riteish Deshmukh, Shraddha Kapoor, Remo Fernandes, Shaad Randhawa, Aamna Sharif, Kamal Rashid Khan, Prachi Desai

Director: Mohit Suri
As per the promos, the movie is supposed to be a suspense thriller. And the suspense is that there is no suspense! In fact, the movie ends in the interval and you witness a whole new style of filmmaking in the second half, which unravels the art of elongating a film without any remaining plot! Till the last climax, the movie buff in you will expect the appearance of some unexpected twist, something that will justify your sitting through the film’s second half. But the unraveling of the (nonexistent) mystery i.e. the disclosure of the identity of the assassin will only fill you up with the desire of banging your head to the nearest wall.
Guru (Sidharth Malhotra) is the angry, young man who works for a Goa based politician cum goon (Remo Fernandes). Aisha (Shraddha Kapoor) is the perennial miss goody-two-shoes who maintains a wish diary filled with the wishes pertaining to experiencing small pleasures and helping people. She makes the agenda of ‘saving Guru’s life’ from the pathos of darkness as her latest wish. She changes Guru. They fall in love, marry and come to Mumbai for a new life. Unfortunately, she gets killed by a serial killer. This devastates Guru. The merciless, angry man in him returns. His only agenda is to find the assassin and avenge the death of his beloved wife. His search leads him to Rakesh (Riteish Deshmukh), a telephone repair guy, who is tired of being shouted upon by his lady boss and his wife (Aamna Sharif) for being good-for-nothing. Though he remains quiet and submissive in front of them and the world in general, he vents out his ire by killing other women. The cat and mouse game starts between Guru and Rakesh, till one of them is thrown into the arms of death.
Apparently, the centre plot of the movie is inspired by the Korean movie ‘I Saw The Devil’. And, as it has happened may times before, in the attempt to Indianize the screenplay, by infusing song, emotions and drama, the essence of the suspense thriller is lost. It appears that Mohit Suri, the director started with something in mind and ended with something else. The cop (Shaad Randhawa) in the movie looks very intense and interested in the happenings. But on the whole, he serves no purpose! Instances of location change between Goa and Mumbai are not explanatory. You are required to guess them on your own. To justify the existence of the movie’s second half, the makers have tried to highlight the concept of ‘karmic circle’ i.e. ‘you reap what you saw’. And they have shown two such instances with each of the leading male protagonists. But it all gets lost in the mayhem.
Interestingly, the art of crafts (especially paper cutting) has been beautifully displayed in the movie. The heroine is shown to be a practitioner of the same and her wish diary as well as her cozy Mumbai nest look beautiful. Art Director has worked well on this. Music is average. However, the number ‘Galiyaan …’ is good.
Mohit Suri’s direction is kind of better than his earlier work. But somewhere he got confused with the storyline. Or, some serious meddling was done with his work. As expected, Sidharth looks very handsome. Surprisingly, he looks more comfortable in the action genre than his previous two flicks which projected him as the romantic hero. With this movie, Riteish has got the best role of his life, and he has done a good job. But with some more honed skills, he could have done wonders. Shraddha has a small role and she has done justice to it. Aamna Sharif is OK. Item number is done by Prachi Desai. By the time, it appears, you are so much in the hurry for the movie to end, that it comes across as highly unnecessary.

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