Misfiring Synapses as I watch - Lootera

 There I sit for a friday night show of Vikramaditya Motwane's Lootera, the lights dim and the show begins.....SEVERE SPOILER ALERT!!!

- 'Chennai Express' is gonna ssssssssssuck but will still most probably rake in crores and crores of rupees...sigh...I swear I read the final tagline of the promo as 'Rohit Shetty shit-yle' instead of 'ishtyle'...I think I will be forgiven...

- Imran Khan cannot pull off a rough look, he looks like a friggin हिजड़ा in the promo for 'Once upon a time in Mumbai 2'

- Movie starts nice and slow...setting a good milieu...1950s Bengal...zamindari system on it's last legs...an unwell daughter and her doting father...the 'thotha' story was a nice touch...some girl wooted when Ranveer Singh came on screen....really? I mean really???

- Sonakshi Sinha has a huge golf course of a forehead...my god! I mean i don't want to be shallow...but god damn... it sometimes feels like she was born with a receding hairline. Though at least they aren't parading her as some hot girl in this movie...

- Director is definitely attempting to create a good chemistry between the lead pair, playful flirtatious banter, a stellar background score by Amit Trivedi, though I must say the songs have not been re-recorded well, the song audio is quite jarring...

- Subtlety in acting performances seems to be the order of the day...both Ranveer and Sonakshi trying their very best to convey deep emotions with subdued expressions, not always succeeding...though most of the supporting cast achieve much better success...a shout out to the hero's friend actor and of course a truly impressive performance by the actor playing the father - the stoic dignified proud zamindar if there ever was one...

- A tremendous pre-interval semi-climax sequence! Now that shows signs of the Vikramaditya Motwane who directed 'Udaan'...it was taut, gripping, silent with a zipping score and the story only moving forward by frozen expressions in framed scenes...A nice perhaps unintentional nod to 'Shawshank Redemption' as a character encounters a tunnel. 

For all the gentle pace the screenplay had, finally a solid end to the first half, really setting the stage for a good second half.

- Whoa, this theater actually gives an intermission break...gotta remember that next time...



- Note to directors: If you have taken your time indulging yourself while telling the story in the first half , you NEED to move up a gear in the second half, not go down one!!!!

- For all the adeptness that was shown in not creating an elaborate death scene for the father, you sure are taking an awful lotta time trying to depict the jilted heroine's plight...WE GET IT SHE IS VERY SAD SO SHE CANT WRITE....OKAY, SHE IS VERY SAD AND HENCE CAN'T WRITE....MOVE ON! you think this makes the audience feel for your character but it actually puts us to sleep out of boredom!

- The camera work has been exquisite throughout the movie, albeit  quite shaky at times...The Bengal village/Zamindar Haweli and snowy Dalhousie area have been used very well giving the movie a timeless ethereal feel.....

-  If only the movie's script and screenplay could holdup to the same timelessness....the second half is slowly but surely becoming the undoing of this director...tooooooo sluggish and logic blemishes beginning to show..

- Really all the hotels in the area have been given explicit instructions to say they are full and putting a 'For Rent' sign on the heroine's front gate will ensure the hero will eventually find his way there...really whatta a strong sting operation mr. super cop...you might benefit from some training from these 'Emotional Atyachaar' idiot detectives...baah...maybe I am nitpicking...

- Not a half bad chase sequence though...very bourne-esque I must say...though I could have done without the 'dig directly into raw wound and easily find and remove bullet' scene...well...I dunno if showing the Indian Cinema time-tested rudimentary alcohol cleanse and fire cauterization would have helped either....sigh...

- The confrontation of the betrayer and the betrayed has been handled so so badly...a complete mismanagement and bad judgement of audience reactions for what they see happening on screen...audience is laughing where they should be feeling the intensity...very very flawed direction...

- I think the actors got stuck in the subdued mode from the first half....a true outburst of locked feelings is severely lacking in the performance...seems loud and fake...the intensity in the struggle of warring feelings between the scorned woman and her unfaithful dishonest beau is so badly portrayed.  If I had to pick, Sonakshi is definitely the one giving it her all and on the whole has given a okay to good performance. 

- This movie makes me wanna watch 'FANAA' again, which is saying a lot, considering it wasn't a very good movie either. At least in the last 20 odd minutes of 'Fanaa', they managed to get the emotions in the confrontation between Aamir Khan and Kajol correctly. This intensity in their performances managed to save some face for the film.

- which brings me to my next point, this movie sorely badly desperately needed an experienced/star cast...I mean as much promise as both leads showed in the muted first half, they showed lesser and lesser acting prowess as more realistic and overt histrionics were required...not to forget the ram gopal verma-ish lingering close focuses on the lead pair's faces that only made it worse...this movie missed an experienced star cast....case in point 'Barfi'...trust me when I say if it was not Ranbir and Priyanka Chopra's famous faces and acting...that movie could have easily fallen flat on it's face!

- Why does the Divya Dutta character not contact the police??? I know why...she wanted to see the heroine fall in love with the same person who betrayed her and caused her father's untimely demise...why? because he threatened her with an empty gun...meaning he is a harmless Mr. Nice Guy...yeah...right...sure...anymore smoke you wanna blow up our backsides mr director?

- Finally the director gets around to the 'The Last Leaf' part of the story. Though there were some allusions to this since the beginning of the movie...at this point it almost feels like an afterthought and perhaps even too late to save the falling movie...a sad thing as this eternal bittersweet short story definitely deserved a better treatment....
Read O.Henry's The Last Leaf

- No impact from the short story or it's climax...less said about fake leaf prop , the better...

- The director has tried really hard to make the climax seem all intense and dramatic...adding a fall and a suicide by cop for good measure...unfortunately it doesn't make it any more fun to watch...just prolongs the movie even more at a point where the audience has stopped caring for the eventual plight of the doomed lovers and just want the movie to end so they can go home.

The movie comes across quite self indulgent and artsy-fartsy, a cross between the 'Fanaa' plot and O.Henry's Last Leaf , not doing justice to either of the premises, weighed down by an inadequately thought out and executed(pun intended) second half. Yeah sure, it is much better than most of the bile that Bollywood spews out, but that doesn't mean it is a great movie by any account. And I refuse to overly praise a movie just because it tries to be different.

Verdict : See, but only online or on DVD