GHANNNNNNNNCHAKAR !!!

What do you call a movie that should not be longer than 1 hour 30 minutes but is stretched to 2 hours 15 minutes ? the answer is simple its called GHANNNNNNNNNCHAKAR !

Ghanchakkar is a story of Sanjay (Emraan Hashmi) who along with his accomplices Pandit(Rajesh Sharma)& Idris(namit Das) steal a bank for Rs. 35 crore very easily and without any difficulties. They decide to share their profit 3 months later since they do not want to give any clues to Police about the money so they decide that Sanjay should keep the cas as he is the only one who owns a house and has a wife(Vidya Balan). 3 months later when Pandit calls Sanjay to share the money, Sanjay informs that he has lost his memory and does not remember anything about it. What follows is a long dragging story about Is Sanjay lying or he really lost his memory ? do they find the money or not ? who has the money ? And what happened to Sanjay ?

Ghanchakkar is a story where plot sounds like a international level content but miserably fails to deliver, a very different story but seems like the director just Raj Kumar Gupta wanted to show a lot but could not live upto it.

Emraan Hashmi plays Sanju a semi-Ghajini, if I may call him so, does a decent part in the second part with his frustration showing about the loss of his memory. In the first half he’s simple as a frustrated Marathi husband of a over the top Punjabi wife. On and all, though Emraan Hashmi has not done a superb job but he’s not bad either.

 

Vidya Balan plays an over the top Punjabi wife who is a total drama queen and lives the life according to Femina, Vogue & Elle Magazine. Vidya is too loud and after seeing her in roles like Kahani, Paa & No One Killed Jessica  the expectations are too high. But this time she fails to deliver, maybe the character she plays does not have much scope in the movie. Caution Vidya ! select your roles wisely like you always did, don’t over gamble.

Rajesh Sharma is a very seasoned actor and has wowed us by his various performances in Khosla Ka Ghosla, Love Shuv Te Chicken Khurana, Dirty Picture & Special 26 are the quite memorables one. As Panditji, Rajesh Sharma plays a pivotal character which is quite believable and par excellence. Panditji is a crook  but he is not those typical type of a crook he is something different. Full marks to Rajesh Sharma for playing Panditji.

Namit Das is too cute, although he’s playing  a grey shade but you can’t stop loving his cuteness and his comic shades. he needed this role badly after a great performance in Wake Up Sid and a passable performance in Lafangey Parindey. A few scenes are hilarious , like the whole bank loot is super funny especially with the funny masks of Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra & Utpal Dutt,one more  when they are on the dining table and Idris asks “yeh fried rice hai ?” another one when Idris is talking to Chanda on the phone and they play Doctor Doctor is a laugh riot.

On the whole with a story that could have been an engaging and twisty suspense thriller with a touch of humour, GHANCHAKKAR gets repetitive and boring after the four characters are introduced. Everything’s fine till Emraan, Rajesh and Namit pull off the heist, but soon after that Fizzzz the story goes for a toss and revolves around the same thing again and again. Ideally, the film should’ve become an edge of the seat thriller soon after the duo Pandit & Idris come back to take their share, but what follows is plain tedious repetitiveness. To make matters worse, the episodes are unexciting, forcefully funny and monotonous. Avoid or wait for it to come on some TV channel and watch it for Free … Don’t Spend !

My Rating 2/5 (1 for A good plot, which was eventually killed and 1 for a few funny moments here and there)

 

 

Cinematic Format of A Childhood Nightmare

I am sure most of us in childhood have been told stories about ghosts, witches & beings from the underworld, and unfortunately it made all real sense to us as kids and worst we still carry it with us in our head even today ! we are made to believe since childhood that there are Ghosts who will come iin the night and take us if we don,t be good, eat fast or the the witch will take take you to her house etc etc.

Ek Thi Daayan is a brilliant interpretation of how our mind is the main culprit of making us believing and fearing things which might not be there ! Its just our inner fear that creates a barrier between the reality and vivid imagination.

Bobo [Emraan Hashmi] is India’s leading magician. But unknown to even his girlfriend Tamara [Huma Qureshi], Bobo’s life is falling apart. His constant hallucinations leave him with no option but to seek psychiatric help. Going through hypnosis, a terrifying story about his childhood surfaces involving a sinister power called ‘Daayan’, who has not only destroyed his family, but also promised to return to haunt Bobo. Bobo chooses to ignore it and move on with his life. Just when his career and love life is at full throttle, enters the irresistible Lisa Dutt [Kalki Koechlin]. Bobo is convinced that she is the daayan. But is she, really? Or is he just losing his mind?

Ek Thi Daayan is a very nicely made film its quite a surreal movie where its trying to personify the fears of a human and unacceptability of certain people in our life and how we relate them to as evil. It also very cleverly narrates a possibility of how everyone has 2 sides a good and evil and its upto us to choose who we want to be.

Talking about the performances Emraan Hashmi has played something out of the ordinary for him, his general image of a Casanova or a very flamboyant character rips apart his image as a very divulged personality who is just like any other common man who is moderately successful with a traumatic past and the effects of it on his present. As an actor Emraan is going from strength to strength.

Huma Qureshi is a good actress but she does not justify being a lead lady in a main stream commercial movie. Of course shes done her part very well but again she fits the bill only in certain characters and does not look very versatile. Kalki has a minuscule role that too in the second half her performance is nice and she actually looks like a Daayan too ! apart of that she does not get more scope to perform. The Bengali Doctor is OK and could have been done better by some other character artists from bollywood, i would have loved to see Boman Irani do the role or may be Darshan Jariwala. Vishesh Tiwari(young Emraan) of Chillar Party fame, Sara Arjun(Misha) and Bhavesh Balchandani(Zubin) are the three child actors, who have significant roles and have done a fabulous job. Zubin played by Bhavesh Balchandani is very strong as an actor and always reminded me of Jugal in Mr.India.
The star of the film is Konkana Sen Sharma, Superb presence, superb acting, excellent dialogue delivery and she can scare the shit out of you. no other actress could have done Diana better than Konkana.

I know have said this earlier but once again Hindi Film Industry disappoints me, why do we need songs in a psychological thriller, and that too SUPER BAD MUSIC ?? if you want to put songs, put them in the background so that the movie keeps on moving. the length of the movie is 134 minutes (2hrs 14 minutes) seems justifiable having to accommodate so many characters, but the the screenplay is not justified. The beginning build of the story is amazing and manages to keep you to the edge of your seat but soon after the interval the story fizzles out, we were expecting some more chilly moments in the second half. The worst part is the “TYPICALLY RAMSAY” ending ! you could have made it much better.    

On the whole  if you’ve ever heard ghost stories even though you were shit scared … this is the movie you should watch… slow but very well made, predictable though still enjoyable. watch it… i liked it… you might like it too

My Rating : 3/5