Monday, January 09, 2006

Kalyug: Movie Review

To tell the truth....I hated Kalyug from the word GO!

Oh my God! The world is gonna hang me after the above statement. Just about everyone says defends Kalyug. Something in the line of "Return of good old days of Bhatt.....Bhatt returns to the Zakhm standards". Really? Kalyug was that good? Sorry, I didn't notice! May be I should watch it once more? Man! please excuse me. I would rather watch a well-made movie with the stupidest theme than a shabbily executed movie with a noble intention.

You want the plot? The hero (Kunal) and his wife (Renuka) went to some kind of tourist spot for their honeymoon. Bad luck that their intimate moments were secretly filmed and hosted in a desi porn website. With an international porn-mafia behind these deeds Police promptly arrests the couple for making blue films. Renuka couldn't stand the humiliation and deceit. And she commits suicide.

From there on Kunal takes it as his destiny to destroy the people behind the porn website. No easy task by any means. On the way along he gets to meet some interesting characters and gets to see the ugly face of porn business. As a character says 'this is kalyug'. What else do you expect?!

So, it does sound like a great plot, right? Yeah....probably path-breaking in Bollywood (don't know about the other Wood's). I feel sad that such a fresh plot was destroyed by a careless script and crass execution. Why didn’t they just concentrate on the story at hand? I mean, why digress and talk about Kashmiri Pundits and Gujarat earthquake victims? Surely, they are worth making different movies, without cramming all these into Kalyug as side-plots.

Only today did I recognize that the actor who did the lead role is Kunal Khemu. Remember young Ajay Devgan in Zakhm? I really liked him as a child artist. Well, he was not that bad in Kalyug. Just looked like a boy whom you might meet in your neighborhood. May be if he kept his hair short, I would get a glimpse of his face!

The girl who acted as Renuka (Smiley!) looked like she did the film sans any makeup. That’s fine. But her acting was horrible. Or, am I so irritated by innocent sweet girlie-girls?! Amrita Singh performing as the woman who controls a very profitable porn-mafia...I liked that. At least she didn't use kohl and complicated bindis to look like a bad girl. She was just right.

Emraan Hashmi - I wouldn't care to say anything about him or his role. Deepal Shaw - the music album girl was highly irritating. Ashutosh Rana - would you please stay away from stereotypes and do some justice to your acting skills?

Let me end with some positive comments. THE song of the season, Jiya dhadak dhadak Jaye.... rocks!!! To the credit of the moviemakers, they could have easily added some steamy scenes given the theme. But, they didn't. In fact there is no unnecessary hot scenes. If only they had a better script!

Categories: , , , ,