The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Too many potholes in plot

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 07, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Too many potholes in plot

36 China Town (Hindi)

Director: Abbas-Mustan

Cast: Shahid Kapur, Akshaye, Kareena Kapoor, Isha Koppikar, Tanushree Dutta, Payal Rohatagi

This film promises to live up to the male fantasy: There are four girls here, none of whom has ever been accused of too much inhibition, off too much modesty. Each one of them is game for dare-bare route to success. We have Isha Koppikar who has never quite been able to shake of the `Khallas' tag. We have Tanushree Dutta who was so brazen with her obviously limited assets in her debut film, "Aashiq Banaya Apne" that her chances of going a step further must be counted as one in a million. And we have Payal Rohatagi, poor man's poor, real poor version of Mallika Sherawat. The girl has been known to have only one mantra for her film career: if you have it, flaunt it. The problem is: She does not have it. So, try as she might, she never seems to make the cut.

And yes, we do have Kareena Kapoor, really struggling to keep pace with the skip and strip girls. A few years ago, she promised lovelier things with "Asoka": her translucent saris revealing all youthful undulation are still etched in memory. Reality has taken over since: The girl is better when she is covered. She was quite fetching in a churidar-kurta-dupatta in "Dev", and quite forgettable as "Chameli" where her sari was in constant danger of giving in to the laws of gravity.

Now, the four girls come together in this Abbas-Mustan film. They appease the vanity of men, nothing more, nothing else.

But the men have to really keep the index of their expectations low to return happy from this film that is actually supposed to be a murder mystery, the kind of thriller the directors specialise in. However, there are no goose bumps, nowhere do you feel, `what next'! And when it all ends, it is more than a bit of an anti-climax, almost like a jolt, a deceit. The suspense never builds: You never find yourself wondering who killed the lady whose child is gone missing. The intrigue is not there, the mind never gets a chance to work itself up with the possible guilty. There are too many potholes in the plot, and too many songs to take away the momentum of story-telling. But yes, there are some solaces in this film. The jokes are almost always well-timed. The only time when one gets a feeling of heard-that is at the beginning when Upen Patel asks a girl if her father is a terrorist? Why? Because she is such a bomb! We heard that just a couple of weeks ago in "Shaadi Se Pehle", another offering from the Ghai camp. A case of the dialogue writer straying from one shooting to another? Then we have Shahid Kapur, and Akshaye, who is fast becoming a Ghai regular. Incidentally, that is something one would say about the film too. It has some engaging moments, some moments to laugh away the blues, but there is no strong enough reason to leave aside everything and drive down to a hall playing this solo Hindi release of the week.

Ziya Us Salam

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