Thursday, October 16, 2008

Drona - Movie Review

So, Officially this is going to be my first movie review and also my first post 1 year after I started the blog (yes I know I am bit lazy).

There are lots of movie review sites available so I am not going to bore you with all the technical, artistic aspects of the review. My review will be short and on target – Is movie worth watching??? Why??? That’s all.

So lets start.

Indian Film Industry is huge and has a diversified audience in terms of culture, education, geography, understanding, etc the list can be long and there is this catch 22 situation for a film-maker: either to target a specific group or to make movie for a larger audience. But, most film-makers forget that over time, Indian audience has become smart and there is already diversified stuff available on television to make their expectation level from a film much higher because films (bada parda) are considered to be superior to television (chhota parda). This can be all together a different topic. My point is that the film should be grand and superior from television series, not only in terms of technology but also in terms of story telling, scripts, acting, direction etc. I know I know, I told you I would be to the point but you can sense the frustration I have.

So, Goldie behl (who…??? He is hubby of Beautiful Sonali Bendre…yes now you know whom I am talking about) had a big khwab (Dream as in a fantasy story idea) at hand, great. But what he did not know was for fantasy story to work, it should novel – something we have not seen, some thing we would have just in imagination, which is bared of all cliché. He had to his disposal, a big budget, latest technology and Big stars (At least in media dominated world). What he did not have is either imagination or courage to do something out-of-box. So what we have is small quantity of ingredients picked from different films and churned together to make a pseudo-superhero movie (pseudo- coz the people attached to the film deny “Drona” being a superhero movie). Aditya (Abhishekh) lives with adopted parents…I mean foster-parents, who keep on abusing him in Punjabi style, which is incorporated to produce much needed harry potter like sympathy to our superhero but unlike the original, the scenes here fails to do the same. Our hero is shown to smile in this horrible situation only when a blue petal would come down flying and make him to chase it. The foster-parents or step-brother never looked horrible in present of AB baby. It’s only after you finish watching the movie you realize the reason. Simple, because AB baby carries the same serious expression all along the movie – may be he has got some acting lessons from Ash. So our hero is from kul of Guards (called Drona): who protect the Amrit and the evil man Riz Raizada (Kay Kay Menon) is after this Amrit but our hero does not have any idea about his true identity.

Then more cliché follows: the villain Riz Raizada, who has a habit of playing with wicked toys (he even produces his own matrix-styled clone) who is on lookout for Amrit and Drona, comes to know about Ab baby’s true identity and tries to capture him. Enter our desi matrix-styled body guard Sonia (Priyanka Chopra), she saves Aditya from gang of evil men. Smart, something unusual in bollywood movie, but……how can you expect Director to be anti-cliché, so here as soon as she saves Aditya with a convincing manner, she breaks into a dance sequence. Totally unnecessary. She tells Aditya about him about legend of Drona who guards the Amrit, his mother, queen Jayati Devi, and how she is always around protecting him. So there is one more attack during the conversation, during which Drona tries to come to terms with his new identity, then there is a son and mother meeting, cut short by evil man who turns the mother into stone statue, some mournful songs. Through all this, the hero keeps on closing on Amrit through cliché clues. Confused? Well, Aditya gives away the address of amrit written on rice to Riz Raizada to save his mother, but to save the world he starts a quest of finding Amrit before Riz Raizada. Now, here director could have used his imagination to come up with some really innovative ideas but what we get is cliché instances: mysterious village with loud colored design, a midget, a bearded man with sword right out of 1990’s Doordarshan mythological serial, few more fight sequence with black-hooded extras and some pretty waste of technology (unimaginative special effects borrowed straight from Hollywood movies as to show – look we can also create same effects, without any significance on the narration). I thought I was watching a serial on DD Metro which used to come a long time back, I think it was named “Sindabad – The sailor” or something. Total Cliché. They worked hard on special effects but do not have any impact whatsoever. The sword fight in the end is also not able to provide a punch. Consider the two: Kay Kay and Abhishekh fighting with swords. Do they look like super-human fighters as shown throughout the movie? Kay Kay portrayed as Rakshasha keeps on doing crazy things and just keeps on talking then doing anything in real, though he tries his best but there is no scope against a weak screenplay. Priyanka did a good job at the start but was pushed to back-seat to usual stuff what girls do in bollywood movie – best part is in action sequence, she looked more convincing then Abhishekh, he has same intense expression throughout. Supporters argue it is because he is showing intensity. Oh Come on give me a break. There are better ways then this to show intensity.

In all, if you are not one of this, this movie is not worth watching:

  • You are a big fan of Abhi, Piggy Chopes (or Kay Kay…???) that you watch all their movies.
  • You like fantasy films no matter what.
  • You want to travel back in those Doordarshan days and want to watch those legendary fantasy sories – I would recommend you to watch – Jumping jack’s Haatim Tai. At least you will get the nostalgia feel.
  • You have lot of time and you have nothing to kill it.
  • If you have to write a review of this movie for your blog.


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