When I was a child my mother would invent stories just like that. She would invent characters, make them do things, and since her intention was not to be a great story teller but to ensure that my share of food is off my plate, she would get lost in the meandering maze of the story. Even today she recalls, that although she would lose track of what she said, I would, aged three/four, stop her and question the erratic shuffle of the storyline.
When I go to watch a movie today, I still carry the same level of concentration and question the legitimacy of every small incident that takes place, every character that gets introduced to us within the scope of the narrative.
The dilemma that I am faced with Reema Kagti's debut directorial venture 'Talaash' is, do I question the story itself? Or, should I question the story-telling? Because, for me,the script is of prime importance. If it is a very strong script, and then you have actors of Aamir Khan, Nawaazuddin Siddiqui, and Rani Mukherji's calibre, there is hardly anything that can fall through.
Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti have scripted a ghost story. But, till the end the audience treats it as a suspense-thriller, a mystery tale. It is an intricate plot and till the last leg of the film the director and her actors have lend complete credence to the story. However, the moment the supernatural or ghost element is weaved in, the film strikes a discordant note.
The main plot revolves around a car accident in which an upcoming hindi film hero Armaan Kapoor (Vivek Madan) had plunged into the Arabian Sea at the wee hours of night with his car, and is dead. Inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat (Aamir Khan) is the investigating officer, trying to resolve the mystery of the five Ws and 1 H ( Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How).
The sub-plot is that of a husband and wife (Aamir and Rani), who have lost their 8-year old son Karan and are trying to cope very hard with the loss. An overtly curious and helpful neighbour has convinced the bereaved mother that the late son wants to speak to the parents, and even though the mother has given in to the penchant of planchet, the logical, non-believer father rubbishes any such possibility. He continues to fail miserably to 'manage' the loss.
Kareena Kapoor acts as a call-girl and during the course of the investigation provides many valuable input to the investigating officer. Aamir, by the way, as many trailers of the movie might have suggested, is not sharing a lusty allegiance to her. It takes a lot for a normal man to practice celibacy with Kareena hovering around in her tell-tale attire! We will come to that later.
What unfolds is that 3 years ago Kareena was picked up by three well-to-do youths for a night of pleasure and on their way to a hotel, one of them, along with the call girl fell of the car, on the road. While, the boy's friends took him to the hospital, Kareena was left to die in the footpath, unattended, to avoid any trouble the three youth could have facde. The errant boys later on stashed her body under a tree in a sea beach of Mumbai. Kareena's unsatisfied soul, since then is doing the rounds in the alleys of Mumbai's flesh-trade ring, trying to equate the 2 with the other 2 and bring about justice, to reach her own 4. So yes, Kareena is a ghost, donning the outfit of a call girl who causes damages to the three boys, who denied her a chance to even get a treatment in a hospital.
Now let us question a few things.
Kareena and one of those three guys whose screen name is Nikhil Deshpande, fall off the speeding car. However, the injury Kareena sustains can be easily passed on as one that looks like she has hit the wall of her bedroom in the darkness! The director and the make-up artists does not lend credibility to the ghastly accident victim with a proper make-up. In real life, chances are that you may not even recognize the face if such a thing happens to someone. But no, Kareena looks the same gorgeous girl after she meets with the accident with a very minor head injury.
During the course of the investigation, Inspector Surjan Singh gets to know the name of Nikhil Deshpande and when he goes to meet the guy, the latter is seen on a bed, having lost any ability to talk, move, and is merely counting his days. But, the incongruity is somewhere else. Can you imagine a man in khaki being welcomed by your parents at your place without even being questioned as to what he wants? Here, Aamir Khan knocks at Nikhil's door and the parents let him in, undeterred? Doesn't happen in real life!
Nikhil'other friend, whose screen name is Sanjay Kejriwal, has been trying hard to keep at bay the middle man Sashi, who introduced them on that eventful night to Kareena. Sashi blackmails him for money. Sashi has an aide, Taimur (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who runs errands for the call girls. The night Armaan Kapoor dies in the car accident, Sashi had met the hero in person to collect the money and in return stop blackmailing Armaan and Sanjay. Therefore, the unexpected death of the upcoming hero has the chances of Sashi being linked to the incident. Sashi's female partner knows about the meeting and inadvertently speaks about it infront of Taimur. Taimur smells foul and is trying to grab some quick buck from the ransom that Sashi managed from Armaan Kapoor. Sashi decides to go on a hiding after extracting the last bit of money from Sanjay, and the former gets killed by a .315 caliber shot at him by an unidentified goon. Hence, it is only Taimur and the female partner of Sashi who know about the meeting of Armaan Kapoor, his dark deeds, now. Taimur gets hold of the DVD in which, the three youth are seen with Kareena entering a hotel lobby, and starts blackmailing Sanjay to tell it all, unless shut up by more money. Sanjay gives in to his demand. They meet at a Mumbai train compartment. Immediately after Taimur collects the money and runs he is chased by Sanjay's contracted goons and they take him to a rooftop to put an end to this. Three bullets get shot at Taimur and guess what! Taimur has the time to look at himself, the blood that is oozing out, a hallucination of Kareena Kapoor accusing him of his misdeeds, get up in fear, fall off the roof, and then finally die! Where on earth does a person with three close-shot bullets in his chest gets this much of time to travel to the other world? Also, how was Taimur responsible for Kareena's death is not disclosed to the audience. Who appointed Sashi's killer is also not clearly understood.
Lets move on....
Sanjay Kejriwal smells trouble all around him and finds his father to confide in. A father who we see only two times and not sure why was he required in the narrative at all. He does not take Sanjay out of the soup, does nothing that would have needed him to be in the narrative, but is still there. Is he a money-pumping agent in the film that Rima Kagti had to give him a role? Not sure.
Anyway, Kareena happens to give appearance only to Aamir Khan ( and why not!) and guide him to unravel the mystery so that her soul is satisfied.
Aamir meets her in a hotel room and says, he want to talk, only. Ahem! Alright. I will accept that. But my question is, all that he says to Kareena is that he is very sad at his son's death and is very tired of trying to cope with the loss, and then Kareena's soothing hands......wait.......puts him to sleep! Well, I will take that too. The only question is, what stopped him from sharing this to her dear wife, who is willing to share his burden as well! I mean, he has a loving, good-looking wife at home. Why deny her a chance?
In the course of the events Kareena manages to do a little philantrophy by asking Aamir to release Sashi's erstwhile girlfriend from the tormentuous 'Madam' of the call girls.
So, now let us take a quick look at the headcount and match the scores.
Three spoiled brats- Nikhil, Armaan, Sanjay. Nikhil is living a vegetable life, Armaan has died in the accident, Sanjay is alive but caught red-handed by the police to cover the dark deeds.
Two con men- Sashi and Taimur. Both dead.
Sashi's girlfriend freed. Taimur's girlfriend, who was taken into confidence by Taimur to elope with the money till the latter meets him, is richer by close to 20 lakhs since Taimur could never meet her after the heist.
Scores about to get settled by Kareena. Sanjay is only left to be finished.
Let us now look at the sub-plot. A grieving mother Rani Mukherji is undergoing psychiatric treatment and her neighbour, Billimoria's sister Shernaz Patel convinces Rani to speak to the soul of her son Karan. They both meet and talk to the soul through planchet. Planchets, to the best of my knowledge are done in pitch dark rooms with only candle lights. But, here, the room in which they talk to the spirit is so full of light which two candles could have never brought in. And I suspect if the brightness would have allured the spirits either! Lack of ATD (Attention-to-Detail).
The message that there are 'talking spirits' who tread this earth is conveyed to the audience towards the end of the movie. All this while Aamir denied any such thing can exist. Sanjay Kejriwal tells him that Kareena had died three years back. Aamir does not know who to believe because he meets Kareena every day! On his way to the police station to take Sanjay in his custody, Aamir drives down the same road that Armaan Kapoor took the day he died. From the rear-view mirror Aamir sees Kareena sitting at the back seat, and out of sheer horror loses control. Sanjay tries to bring the car back in control and they find that in the middle of the road Kareena is standing! The car loses its way, swerves itself into the Arabian sea exactly the same way Armaan Kapoor's did and both Aamir and Sanjay go down the sea. This particular scene has very strong resemblance to Gothika. But, the point is, in the same car, there were two people. Sanjay and Aamir and Aamir was at the steering wheel. When the car goes down the sea upside down, we find Sanjay is dead, but like a typical hindi film cliche, where a hero can never die, we find Kareena approaching the sunken car much like the manner of a mermaid, opening the locked door of the car and saving Aamir Khan. The hero does not sustain any injury, and with a little help from Kareena, actually manages to swim his way up! Phew!!
Result, Aamir realizes there is life, after life.
What could have been a splendid tale of mystery, a fantastic suspense thriller, is completely wasted in this very loosely-stricken narrative towards the end.
Hats off to Nawazuddin Siddiqui. He is not handsome. Rather looks dirty. The make-up artists and the costume designers have superbly exploited his looks to fit him in the role of a con man. He looks like he was born to be in that trade.
Aamir Khan. We understand he is in 'Talaash' of something, but, with a 2000 volt worth glamorous call girl going out of her way to help him, giving cameo appearances only to him, his look does not change. Even in his weakest moments he wears the same look and therefore is a little average on that front.
Rani Mukherji does complete justice to her role. She looks like a bereaved mother and a neglected wife.
Rosy, Kareena Kapoor, does very well within her space. She looks, talks like a call girl. Entices like one of her kind would do, and does not use too much of body-language (you know what I mean?) to convince the audience of her profession. I have never found her good-looking, in fact nowhere in the vicinity of what 'a good look' is all about, but I will give her the due credits. She does really well as a ghostly call girl..whatever that means.
The music and the lyrics are both great! Javed Akhtar has penned his songs in such a manner that even the songs tell a tale and Ram Sampath as a music director has re-lived the bygone era of Madhubala, Zeenat Aman. Good scores to say the least.
The art-director and costume designers have certainly stolen the show with a stellar performance. Every character wear and look they are supposed to. The only failure is the minor injury allowed to Kareena to retain her glam look.
But Aamir. You make one film in two years and we expect a lot more from you! You have set your own benchmark and the slightest digression from that standard, be it the selection of script, your acting, we, the die-hard fans get disappointed.
I would wait for your Dhoom 3.....now.
When I go to watch a movie today, I still carry the same level of concentration and question the legitimacy of every small incident that takes place, every character that gets introduced to us within the scope of the narrative.
The dilemma that I am faced with Reema Kagti's debut directorial venture 'Talaash' is, do I question the story itself? Or, should I question the story-telling? Because, for me,the script is of prime importance. If it is a very strong script, and then you have actors of Aamir Khan, Nawaazuddin Siddiqui, and Rani Mukherji's calibre, there is hardly anything that can fall through.
Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti have scripted a ghost story. But, till the end the audience treats it as a suspense-thriller, a mystery tale. It is an intricate plot and till the last leg of the film the director and her actors have lend complete credence to the story. However, the moment the supernatural or ghost element is weaved in, the film strikes a discordant note.
The main plot revolves around a car accident in which an upcoming hindi film hero Armaan Kapoor (Vivek Madan) had plunged into the Arabian Sea at the wee hours of night with his car, and is dead. Inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat (Aamir Khan) is the investigating officer, trying to resolve the mystery of the five Ws and 1 H ( Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How).
The sub-plot is that of a husband and wife (Aamir and Rani), who have lost their 8-year old son Karan and are trying to cope very hard with the loss. An overtly curious and helpful neighbour has convinced the bereaved mother that the late son wants to speak to the parents, and even though the mother has given in to the penchant of planchet, the logical, non-believer father rubbishes any such possibility. He continues to fail miserably to 'manage' the loss.
Kareena Kapoor acts as a call-girl and during the course of the investigation provides many valuable input to the investigating officer. Aamir, by the way, as many trailers of the movie might have suggested, is not sharing a lusty allegiance to her. It takes a lot for a normal man to practice celibacy with Kareena hovering around in her tell-tale attire! We will come to that later.
What unfolds is that 3 years ago Kareena was picked up by three well-to-do youths for a night of pleasure and on their way to a hotel, one of them, along with the call girl fell of the car, on the road. While, the boy's friends took him to the hospital, Kareena was left to die in the footpath, unattended, to avoid any trouble the three youth could have facde. The errant boys later on stashed her body under a tree in a sea beach of Mumbai. Kareena's unsatisfied soul, since then is doing the rounds in the alleys of Mumbai's flesh-trade ring, trying to equate the 2 with the other 2 and bring about justice, to reach her own 4. So yes, Kareena is a ghost, donning the outfit of a call girl who causes damages to the three boys, who denied her a chance to even get a treatment in a hospital.
Now let us question a few things.
Kareena and one of those three guys whose screen name is Nikhil Deshpande, fall off the speeding car. However, the injury Kareena sustains can be easily passed on as one that looks like she has hit the wall of her bedroom in the darkness! The director and the make-up artists does not lend credibility to the ghastly accident victim with a proper make-up. In real life, chances are that you may not even recognize the face if such a thing happens to someone. But no, Kareena looks the same gorgeous girl after she meets with the accident with a very minor head injury.
During the course of the investigation, Inspector Surjan Singh gets to know the name of Nikhil Deshpande and when he goes to meet the guy, the latter is seen on a bed, having lost any ability to talk, move, and is merely counting his days. But, the incongruity is somewhere else. Can you imagine a man in khaki being welcomed by your parents at your place without even being questioned as to what he wants? Here, Aamir Khan knocks at Nikhil's door and the parents let him in, undeterred? Doesn't happen in real life!
Nikhil'other friend, whose screen name is Sanjay Kejriwal, has been trying hard to keep at bay the middle man Sashi, who introduced them on that eventful night to Kareena. Sashi blackmails him for money. Sashi has an aide, Taimur (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who runs errands for the call girls. The night Armaan Kapoor dies in the car accident, Sashi had met the hero in person to collect the money and in return stop blackmailing Armaan and Sanjay. Therefore, the unexpected death of the upcoming hero has the chances of Sashi being linked to the incident. Sashi's female partner knows about the meeting and inadvertently speaks about it infront of Taimur. Taimur smells foul and is trying to grab some quick buck from the ransom that Sashi managed from Armaan Kapoor. Sashi decides to go on a hiding after extracting the last bit of money from Sanjay, and the former gets killed by a .315 caliber shot at him by an unidentified goon. Hence, it is only Taimur and the female partner of Sashi who know about the meeting of Armaan Kapoor, his dark deeds, now. Taimur gets hold of the DVD in which, the three youth are seen with Kareena entering a hotel lobby, and starts blackmailing Sanjay to tell it all, unless shut up by more money. Sanjay gives in to his demand. They meet at a Mumbai train compartment. Immediately after Taimur collects the money and runs he is chased by Sanjay's contracted goons and they take him to a rooftop to put an end to this. Three bullets get shot at Taimur and guess what! Taimur has the time to look at himself, the blood that is oozing out, a hallucination of Kareena Kapoor accusing him of his misdeeds, get up in fear, fall off the roof, and then finally die! Where on earth does a person with three close-shot bullets in his chest gets this much of time to travel to the other world? Also, how was Taimur responsible for Kareena's death is not disclosed to the audience. Who appointed Sashi's killer is also not clearly understood.
Lets move on....
Sanjay Kejriwal smells trouble all around him and finds his father to confide in. A father who we see only two times and not sure why was he required in the narrative at all. He does not take Sanjay out of the soup, does nothing that would have needed him to be in the narrative, but is still there. Is he a money-pumping agent in the film that Rima Kagti had to give him a role? Not sure.
Anyway, Kareena happens to give appearance only to Aamir Khan ( and why not!) and guide him to unravel the mystery so that her soul is satisfied.
Aamir meets her in a hotel room and says, he want to talk, only. Ahem! Alright. I will accept that. But my question is, all that he says to Kareena is that he is very sad at his son's death and is very tired of trying to cope with the loss, and then Kareena's soothing hands......wait.......puts him to sleep! Well, I will take that too. The only question is, what stopped him from sharing this to her dear wife, who is willing to share his burden as well! I mean, he has a loving, good-looking wife at home. Why deny her a chance?
In the course of the events Kareena manages to do a little philantrophy by asking Aamir to release Sashi's erstwhile girlfriend from the tormentuous 'Madam' of the call girls.
So, now let us take a quick look at the headcount and match the scores.
Three spoiled brats- Nikhil, Armaan, Sanjay. Nikhil is living a vegetable life, Armaan has died in the accident, Sanjay is alive but caught red-handed by the police to cover the dark deeds.
Two con men- Sashi and Taimur. Both dead.
Sashi's girlfriend freed. Taimur's girlfriend, who was taken into confidence by Taimur to elope with the money till the latter meets him, is richer by close to 20 lakhs since Taimur could never meet her after the heist.
Scores about to get settled by Kareena. Sanjay is only left to be finished.
Let us now look at the sub-plot. A grieving mother Rani Mukherji is undergoing psychiatric treatment and her neighbour, Billimoria's sister Shernaz Patel convinces Rani to speak to the soul of her son Karan. They both meet and talk to the soul through planchet. Planchets, to the best of my knowledge are done in pitch dark rooms with only candle lights. But, here, the room in which they talk to the spirit is so full of light which two candles could have never brought in. And I suspect if the brightness would have allured the spirits either! Lack of ATD (Attention-to-Detail).
The message that there are 'talking spirits' who tread this earth is conveyed to the audience towards the end of the movie. All this while Aamir denied any such thing can exist. Sanjay Kejriwal tells him that Kareena had died three years back. Aamir does not know who to believe because he meets Kareena every day! On his way to the police station to take Sanjay in his custody, Aamir drives down the same road that Armaan Kapoor took the day he died. From the rear-view mirror Aamir sees Kareena sitting at the back seat, and out of sheer horror loses control. Sanjay tries to bring the car back in control and they find that in the middle of the road Kareena is standing! The car loses its way, swerves itself into the Arabian sea exactly the same way Armaan Kapoor's did and both Aamir and Sanjay go down the sea. This particular scene has very strong resemblance to Gothika. But, the point is, in the same car, there were two people. Sanjay and Aamir and Aamir was at the steering wheel. When the car goes down the sea upside down, we find Sanjay is dead, but like a typical hindi film cliche, where a hero can never die, we find Kareena approaching the sunken car much like the manner of a mermaid, opening the locked door of the car and saving Aamir Khan. The hero does not sustain any injury, and with a little help from Kareena, actually manages to swim his way up! Phew!!
Result, Aamir realizes there is life, after life.
What could have been a splendid tale of mystery, a fantastic suspense thriller, is completely wasted in this very loosely-stricken narrative towards the end.
Hats off to Nawazuddin Siddiqui. He is not handsome. Rather looks dirty. The make-up artists and the costume designers have superbly exploited his looks to fit him in the role of a con man. He looks like he was born to be in that trade.
Aamir Khan. We understand he is in 'Talaash' of something, but, with a 2000 volt worth glamorous call girl going out of her way to help him, giving cameo appearances only to him, his look does not change. Even in his weakest moments he wears the same look and therefore is a little average on that front.
Rani Mukherji does complete justice to her role. She looks like a bereaved mother and a neglected wife.
Rosy, Kareena Kapoor, does very well within her space. She looks, talks like a call girl. Entices like one of her kind would do, and does not use too much of body-language (you know what I mean?) to convince the audience of her profession. I have never found her good-looking, in fact nowhere in the vicinity of what 'a good look' is all about, but I will give her the due credits. She does really well as a ghostly call girl..whatever that means.
The music and the lyrics are both great! Javed Akhtar has penned his songs in such a manner that even the songs tell a tale and Ram Sampath as a music director has re-lived the bygone era of Madhubala, Zeenat Aman. Good scores to say the least.
The art-director and costume designers have certainly stolen the show with a stellar performance. Every character wear and look they are supposed to. The only failure is the minor injury allowed to Kareena to retain her glam look.
But Aamir. You make one film in two years and we expect a lot more from you! You have set your own benchmark and the slightest digression from that standard, be it the selection of script, your acting, we, the die-hard fans get disappointed.
I would wait for your Dhoom 3.....now.
