OMG! It's very slow

Dharam Sankat Mein
Starring: Paresh Rawal, Naseeruddin Shah, Annu Kapoor, Auritra Ghosh
Rated: 4.5/10
OMG! was a blast. It was a unique merger of courage, humour and introspection all in one go. It was a brave film taking on religions and it was a new concept that sold like hot cakes. Its sequel Dharam Sankat has none of the above attributes and it comes across as a laboured attempt to lecture you on the one-ness of religion, in this case, the Hindu-Muslim existential chasm and the futility of it all. On paper, that sounds a good subject to unfold a hard-hitting film on but Dharam Sankat...fails on many counts.
First, it is killingly slow to tackle the tricky topic and this despite seasoned actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal and Annu Kapoor. Naseer as Godman, Rawal as a Hindu who was born Muslim and Annu Kapoor as a Muslim who wants to prove he is as much a man as any other Hindu in his colony, do their bit with perfection but the problem is that what they get to do is just that — a bit — unsubstantial and thus unfilling.
Second, there is hardly any humour in the situation, something that had lent wings to OMG! A neither serious nor funny film is a neither here nor there one and that adds to the drag that this one ends up as. Three, though the subject is a serious one and did have a lot of potential to rip apart the hypocrisy of both the Hinduism and Islam, Rawal is somewhat tender-footed, almost hesitant in throwing up the uncomfortable questions that could have made this one a tad more interesting.
Four and last but not the least, Dharam Sankat Mein comes high on the expectations of OMG! and that kind of brand and fails to live up to its predecessor’s hype. In simple terms, it is a poor “me too” attempt which ends up wasting the huge talent of the big three Bollywood veterans. 
Source: Sunday Pioneer, 12 April, 2015

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nil Battey Sannata: Endearing, real and simple

Cast :  Swara Bhaskar, Ratna Pathak Shah, Pankaj Tripathi Rated :  8/10 Nil Battey Sannata is a confusing title but an endearing, simple, gentle and real film. Besides, the title confuses only till Swara Bhaskar as Chanda explains it to you with endearing simplicity much ahead in the movie. It literally means zero understanding and zero marks — in her and her daughter’s case, in Mathematics. But this one is not just about the mind-boggling numbers that have become the bane of students and parents alike. It is about the maths, algebra and geometry of life itself — an equation that director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari puts on the blackboard in an engaging, simplified format. Nil Battey Sannata  is a film sitting on a very real firmament, a very you-and-me story about the in-your-face problems that everyone encounters. In here, it is about misrani  (cook) Chanda and her full of life but anti-studies daughter Apeksha Sahay’s daily churn. Thankfully, it is not the drudg...
Read more

Criminal: Arresting memory transplant

Cast : Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Ryan Reynolds, Jordi Mollà Rated : 6/10 Big names, big imagination and good execution make this memory transplant thriller a good one to be with, especially with Kevin Costner doing a pretty good job with a character he has never played – that of an emotionless, incarcerated, brutal killer in whose brain a do-good, wife and daughter loving dead CIA’s agent’s (Ryan Reynolds) remembrances are inserted for a trail that is important for the organisation. The underdone role has been handled well by Costner, much like a successful experiment. As he gets acquainted with emotions of love, caring and affection that have been alien to him, he starts turning from a monster to a human being but the director does well to not completely erase his original personality. So, there is a mix and match, there is brutal violence as also gentle gestures, like battering a man to death in a car hijack and saving a hair brush for the little one. The f...
Read more

Aiyyaa: Aiyyo Rani, how could you?

Aiyyaa Starring: Rani Mukherjee, Prithviraj Sukumaran At: PVR & others Rated: 4/10 Romances are often tagged to be illogical affairs of the heart, sometimes unviable and a lot of times unsustainable. Aiyya falls into this category without a care in the world. So, if you go looking to making some sense of this very strangely strung love story, you will be questioning many things, including the sanity of such a venture, especially when it is Rani Mukherjee who is at the helm. Aiyya is not about anything really. It has a very convoluted storyline, the execution of which is equally skewed. Nothing makes sense in this one – neither the over-the-top Maharashtrian family of Rani which has a grandmother whizzing past every camera angle, yelling into the high heavens and baring her shocking teeth in gold, nor the impunity with which Rani’s father smokes four cigarettes in one time, making a mockery of the Censor Board and its stern warning that cigarette smoking is injurious to h...
Read more