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By Sanjay Shah (Tubur Media World) ©2002 Bollyvista.com |
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Credits
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| Producer/s: |
Ram Gopal Varma |
| Director: |
Rajat Mukherjee |
| Cast: |
Manoj Bajpai, Vivek Oberoi, Antara Mali, Sayaji Shinde, Makrand Deshpande, Rajpal Yadav, Vijay Raaz, Ganesh Yadav, Raj Zutshi, Snehal Dabhi, Ganesh Acharya and Koena Mitra |
| Music: |
Sandesh Shandilya and Nitin Raikwar |
| Lyrics: |
Nitin Raikwar, Khilesh Sharma, Jaideep Sahni, Makrand Deshpande and Tabbish Romani |
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Remember Daud? And Kaun? Who made them? Road, another flick from the Ram Gopal Verma stable (this time, however, he is the producer), is an extension of both that movies. Directed by Rajat Mukherjee, Road lacks strength to let viewers walk through the miles of reels with ease.
Arvind (Vivek Oberoi) and Laxmi (Antara Mali) are in love. The opening sequence of a date of the duo, which has no resemblance to anything, tries to create a sort of chemistry between them and to make you feel that they are in love. Anyways, then comes two unwanted and hammering numbers (Kya yeh pyar hai and Toofan sa) just to reconfirm that you have finally taken their for sure. Laxmi’s dad, some DCP Prabhat Singh is against her daughter’s love. Without even trying to behave sensibly, the boy-girl team leaves for Rajasthan to get married at Arvind’s native.
God knows which kind of road they have approached because even they are going to one of the biggest cities of the state, they are shown traveling on absolutely deserted roads from the beginning till the end. So, enjoying every bit of each other’s company and loneliness gifted by roads, they keep on moving towards the destination. In between, a raunchy villager (Vijay Raaz) asks them for lift but they refuse and go ahead. Further, they encounter another lift-beggar Babu (Manoj Bajpai). Looking at his trendy clothes and urbane persona, they oblige and allow him to join them.
Just a few miles later, Babu starts behaving as if the vehicle belongs to him and Arvind is nothing but a driver. When Arvind retaliates and asks him to get his luggage out, he pulls out a revolver instead and forcibly stays in the vehicle. But this was actually the starting of Babu’s dictatorship and not only that, he then forces Arvind out of the vehicle and speeds away with Laxmi. What happens afterwards forms rest of the story.
Road has a sleek story-line but lacks temperament to match it. While Rajat has vividly tried to live up to the demand of the subject, he falls short of efforts mainly due to few routine mistakes. These includes: All the songs (half a dozen in total) are utterly unnecessary for the narrative and in fact, they have been penetrated in the poorest fashion. The two songs that come in the opening are just too much. The director, at the most, could have included the theme song if at all he wanted to have some sort of Bollywood touch in his film. After slow and patchy start, the film actually moves well till the interval point. But nothing interesting happens in the second half and that is where the film loses its grip. Laxmi is almost kidnapped by Babu but strangely, she does nothing even when she gets ample opportunities to run and get Babu arrested. Instead, she even helps Babu in killing innocent people. The behavior of police and the way Arvind tries to get the official help and to search Laxmi are all too good to believe. And in a scene where Arvind and Laxmi’s vehicle is chased by Babu who is following them in a truck, the director has shown Babu outdoing the couple by banging the truck many times with the other vehicle. Can you ever imagine a truck can ran faster than a sports utility vehicle which has more powerful engine?
On the up side, Road has very few things to offer. One of them is the background score by Amar Mohile. Using variety of instrument in usual and experimental styles, Mohile has added extra fear and excitement to many scenes. While Rajnish Thakur fails to write a gripping screenplay from his own story, he manages to leave some impact with punchy one-liners. His dialogues are good and that is what lifts mood in many scenes. Cinematography by Sudeep Chaterjee is of first rate.
Editor Chandan Arora has done his job with care and the film, in technical terms, is lucid. Titles by Hufeza Lokhandwala need special mention.
On the performance front, Vivek Oberoi does justice to his character. However, unlike Company where he got to play a dream role, his role here is just about average in terms of importance and substance. Still, he is good with his natural ability to put life into each moment. Antara Mali for the first time is appearing in the solo female lead. Though her character has lots of shades, she disappoints with passable act. She also has to develop better looks for camera if she wants to make it big in Bollywood. And she should also understand that exposing body is not the only thing a heroine has to do to make her place. Manoj Bajpai, once again, enlivens his part with simplest expressions with care and sensibility. His role is rather more interesting than Vivek’s role and Manoj takes maximum advantage of this by delivering right things. Sayaji Shinde as inspector is dependable as usual. Makrand Deshpande as truck driver Inderpal, Rajpal Yadav as petrol pump attendant Bhanwar Singh, Vijay Raaz as a villager, Raj Zutshi as Kishen and Ganesh Yadav as a bungalow watchman lend able support.
Rajat Mukherjee’s second film (first was Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya) is a mistaken mixture of sleek Hollywood style of offbeat movies and tedious manner of Bollywood films. If Rajat had done away with songs and dance sequences and worked little harder on screenplay, Road would have turned out to be a movie not only worth seeing but also to remember. While Ram Gopal himself made Kaun which had simple story, he chose not to have songs to mar the mood of the narrative. It is strange that his own production Road breaks simple rules followed by his earlier film. Overall, Road is an average film with no tar of tight narrative and concrete of clear moments. |
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