The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Living it up, in super style

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 16, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Living it up, in super style

GUNS ALL, NO ROSES: John Abraham and Sunjay Dutt in `Zinda.'

Zinda (Hindi)

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, John Abraham, Celina Jaitley, Lara Dutta

Director: Sanjay Gupta

Bollywood gets smart. In fact, smarter! The guys are still copying, many films are still `inspired' from foreign films - just as "Zinda" draws from a Korean film "Old Boy". However, they are doing it with a style rarely seen in the past, and a panache that kisses arrogance. Bollywood suddenly seems to be all sleek, all so stylish. Not quite Tarantino, the guys are seeking to mix style with very Indian emotions. Now, Sanjay Gupta who has given us films like "Kaante", "Plan" and "Musafir" in the past comes up with "Zinda", a cocktail that is mind numbing, bone crunching. It is a film that should be seen with a large heart, and by those who have an appetite for unrestrained brutality on the screen.

A single line story - a brother's quest for avenging his sister's death - this film scores with its screenplay and camerawork. The background music adds punch, and a film that could have fallen flat due to the absence of more than a single layer, races ahead.

Sunju's show

The viewers sit engrossed as Sanjay Dutt as a man undergoing 14 years of solitary confinement, comes up with one of his better performances in recent times. His clothes, even his slippers are all black. As is his room. The paint, the bed, the sheet, the rug, the pot. Such symmetry in detention!

Inside, there is lots of violence. Violence, just spirit wilting violence. No reason. No excuse. No villain is seen, no fights, no fisticuffs. Just unmitigated torture as one round of cruelty leads to another. However, Gupta captures things with such poise that the viewers hardly have a moment to ask, `why'. Well, the reason unfolds well into the second half. And we learn that Dutt is paying the price for a schoolboy prank. By then, the film has us all in a thrall that would be have been absolute had there been slightly tighter editing in the second half, and Mahesh Manjrekar not hammed up his act of Dutt's friend yet again. Sorry, but Manjrekar who showed such promise with "Kaante", is only repeating himself - monotony, that constant companion of the mediocre, is setting in on his acting career. Maybe, he would be better behind the camera.

Glitch in the tale

That is a minor glitch in what is quite an enjoyable film if you like your films with a dash of violence that is relentless without being gory, detailed without being too mechanical. Watch "Zinda" for a lively performance from Dutt, good supporting act from John Abraham who is the surprise package. Don't, however, go looking for the babes. You sneeze a couple of times in this cold weather, and Celina Jaitley would be through with her role of Dutt's wife.

You need a break or two in between? Do so when Lara Dutta as a taxi driver walks on the streets of Bangkok like she is on the ramp. The girls only reduce the life quotient of "Zinda". Ignore them, watch this film as an atavist man!

ZIYA US SALAM

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh