Karnataka   

Generous in blemishes

ROCKED: Sushmita Sen in `Zindaggi Rocks'

Zindaggi Rocks (Hindi)

Cast: Sushmita Sen, Shiney Ahuja, Kim Sharma and Moushumi Chatterjee

Director: Tanuja

Chandra

Just this past week Mahesh Bhatt moved many of us to tears with "Woh Lamhe". That was moving without being mawkish.

Now Tanuja Chandra leaves us feeling sad, silly and sentimental. Sorry, but that is no way of entertainment, hardly a way befitting a storyteller who regaled us with "Dushman" and "Sur".

"Zindaggi Rocks" is an experiment that suffers because of many reasons: bad, real bad music, listless side performances, and dark picturisation.

Lacking a single ray of hope, everything that can conceivably go wrong with a movie goes wrong with it. The viewers suffer because of one mistake: entering the hall to watch this latest film from Tanuja Chandra, starring the vivacious Sushmita Sen and the promising Shiney Ahuja.

A story of a rock star with an adopted son, "Zindaggi Rocks" is supposed to be a showcase for Sushmita Sen to show off her acting skills, her dexterity on the dance floor. Of course, she is in love with Shiney's Rehan, a doctor who can heal without a scalpel.

Sushmita looks a pale picture of Miss Universe; the passing years have taken a toll on her lovely face.

Her voice though remains her ally; it is enough to make heads turn, to reduce the most argumentative of men into a silent listener. But she is severely handicapped by Anu Malik's tunes. A film like this needs excellent music.

Then the dialogue writer alternates between the drab and the poetic. You get a few wistful lines and prepare for the best. Not to be. The way dialogues flow it seems the characters are caught in some language limbo.

Top that with some real mediocre character actor support for the lead duo. Whatever points Sushmita and Shiney earn with their performance, Kim Sharma and Moushumi Chatterjee lose with theirs.

While Kim does her best to blend with the furniture, Moushumi is a misfit in a double role: glib talking, English-speaking aunt, and a tough matron.

Much like the film, which picks up life only when Sushmita decides an unusual way to save the life of her son.

For a while the suspense holds good, and the viewers think that a woman who does not speak a single line in the film will probably play the Good Samaritan.

That is when the film attracts attention. It is short-lived. This one is niggardly in graces, generous in blemishes.

ZIYA US SALAM

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

Stories in this Section

Kannada-medium schools to teach English from first standard
Generous in blemishes
Correction
Briefly

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu