By Anirban Lahiri
Featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
Thespian Anupam Kher makes a mix of screwball and mumble
core to initiate the kids from his acting academy, Actor Prepares, in acting in
a feature film. The purpose is commendable. But, the result frustrates us.
The premise is a known one. Girl is to elope with
boy to settle in the tinsel town. She is street-smart, while he is chocolate
but skilled. They need money. They loot a bank.
Almost a picaresque drama. Definitely not a Bonny
and Clyde. With forced and fake dialogues, cliché characterizations and goals,
and setup stereotypes worse than the Ed Wood spoofs, the film is halted since
it begins.
Time and again, we have seen when new directors want
to make a shoe-string-budget feature for the first time, they come either to
action or to comedy. Both becomes some kind of unintentional spoof of badly
handled narration. Ranchi Diaries looks like vaudeville, the Indian traveling
theatre, badly accomplished and recorded for screen.
What it could have been instead! The vaudeville form
was used by the French and American silent comedy makers. That was the perfect
form for satire on the screen. AnupamKher must know all these. He is a senior,
efficient stage and screen person. Instead, under the help of his mentorship,
the director chose to overburden the narration with chocolaty, visual-media – school-exercise type body language and dialogues.
The film is replete with clichés – mad lovers, local
goons, trustable friends, the local Don (Thakur Bhaiya, played by AnupamKher)
who is enamored with Gudiya (Soundarya Sharma) – the lover girl who wants to be
a music diva in the tinsel town, honest cop (Jimmy Shergill) who wants to catch
his own uncle (Thakur Bhaiya, AnupamKher) red-handed – a honest cop, and the
local Naxalites who are in an entente with Thakur Bhaiya.
When the film began at the end of the story, it
showed some promise for a new style - rural and rusty, unhindered by the
Bollywood conventions. Within five minutes, that promise is broken. This film,
like scores of other contemporary films, tries to imitate the glamorous
Bollywood in cheap ways.
This film is a lesson for wannabe indie filmmakers,
film students and actors who want to make something of choice. The film teaches
what not to do. It shows how one can close options.
One can prepare fantastic water-rice with tamarind
with scanty resources. Trying the best biriyani with the same would always be
ludicrous.
The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of A Potpourri of Vestiges. Any omissions or errors are the author's and A Potpourri of Vestiges does not assume any liability or responsibility for them.
Ranchi Diaries - Official Trailer
Ranchi Diaries - Official Trailer
Readers, please feel free to share your opinion by leaving your comments. As always your valuable thoughts are highly appreciated!
People who liked this also liked...
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for sharing for valuable opinion. We would be delighted to have you back.