Via Darjeeling:a thriller minus the thrills

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Sonali Kulkarni, Vinay Pathak, Parvin Dabbas, Rajat Kapoor, Simone Singh, Prashant Narayanan, Sandhya Mridul

Direction: Arindam Nandy

Producer: Joy Ganguly

Written by: Arindam Nandy , Atul Sabharwal

The film tells the story of a married couple Ankur and Rimli Sharma (played by KK Menon and Sonali Kurkarni respectively), who had gone to Darjeeling on their honeymoon. But on the day of their return, Ankur vanishes from the scene. Many years later, the then inspector in charge of the case (played by Vinay Pathak) who failed to solve it, recounts the events to a group of his friends. The friends come up with their own versions of what might have caused Ankur’s disappearance. However, these multiple narrations couldn’t translate into a riveting story. The open-ended stories by the friends failed to connect in a single thread, which if happened, would have made the plot a lot more meaningful.

Acting wise, Rajat and Simone are good. The others are just average. Sonali, in fact, irritates a lot with her mannerisms and over the top histrionics. The lack of a good script had little to offer to these polished actors. So, the sheen is off their performance but the director, rather than the actors, is to be blamed. Even the end of the film is abrupt and leaves the audience wanting. The bottom-line: an unsuccessful attempt to present Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” on screen.

Postscript: Came across a nice site Onyomo where you can get every detail of your city (movies, shopping, restaurant, bookstore and more). For getting more info on this film (which cinema halls are screening it and what are the show timings), click here.

Image courtesy: NFDC

Chalo Let’s Go - a film by Anjan Dutt

Sanjoy (the narrator), Hori, Shekhar and Asim (a qualified doctor, who wants to try everything except the medical profession) – it’s the story of these four friends. The first three had a band of their own but their singing talents (they believed it was “talent” though their audiences believed otherwise) couldn’t save them from public humiliation during one of their stage shows. It was then that they quit and encouraged by Asim-the “visionary & planner”, formed “Ghoroya”-a travel agency. How they arranged a trip to Darjeeling with a motley group of passengers, faltered at almost every step due to poor planning and management and how events unfolded – all these make the central theme of “Chalo-let’s go”.

The first positive thing about the film is the brilliant photography (Indranil Mukherjee) of the scenic locales. You will enjoy the trip for sure even without venturing out in reality. However, the screenplay isn’t a taut one and the love triangle between Ria (aka Keya), Hori & Sanjoy drags and irritates. Among the tourists, each has his/her own story. The overacting of Koneenica, though, stands out as a sore thumb. Asim (Saswata) stands out amongst the four friends – for effortlessly portraying various shades of the character - the businessman in him asking for “mallu” (money) being collected from the tourists, scolding Hori for falling yet again for a girl, asking Sanjoy to step aside of the love triangle or donning the doc’s cap to save a dying man at the Father’s Missionary and cursing himself afterwards for being unable to save a life despite knowing well that he was fighting a losing battle.

This film has a few witty dialogs and has lingo used by Gen Y that would make you laugh and enjoy the proceedings somewhat. There’s nothing much to write home about the music though (unlike Bong Connection whose special rendition of “Pagla Hawa” took the city by storm). Overall, I feel the film got much more hype that it really deserved. I went to see the movie after hearing words-of-mouth praise but was disappointed in the end. Anjan Dutt could have developed some of the characters more and gone deeper into them. According to me, a good film is that which gives you something to carry with you outside the theatre after the credits have rolled up on screen. Chalo Let’s Go fails on this count.

Image courtesy: Calcutta Tube