Movie Review Of No Smoking. Review on No Smoking

Director – Anurag Kashyap

Screenplay – Anurag Kashyap and Raja Chowdhari.

Plot *

K(John Abraham) is a cigarette addict and that’s his major obsession. When his wife Anjali(Ayesha Takia) decides to leave him, he decides, on the persuasion of his friend, and ex-smoker, Abbas(Ranvir Shorey) to get enrolled in a rehabilitation program, run by a weirdo, Shri Shri Prakash Guru Ghantal Baba Bengali Sealdah Waaley(Paresh Rawal). The deal is that Baba will make him sign a contract which will ensure K does whatever he is asked or face dire consequences. While Baba wants to make sure K leaves smoking for good, K decides to rebel and thus face consequences he would never have dreamt of in his wildest dreams.

Critic’s Comments

There are 2 sides to a coin. One can go to see movies only expecting normal movies with simple story lines. Or else one can go to see a movie and expect something totally whacky. Whether it needs to make any logic or not is not the question. You see the movie only to feel its difference. No Smoking is one such movie. After a brilliant Black Friday(Which in my books is the Hindi Movie of the year – 2007), this one was extremely different. No Smoking is one of those rare movies with Black humor and is extremely abstract. If you have seen movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Aks, The 13th Floor or Being John Malkovich, you will know what I mean. This is, what I would call, modern day story telling at its best. The message conveyed, is in a different, yet a very hard way. That Smoking kills. The starcast is impressive and John Abraham is perfectly suited for the role. Ayesha Takia, looks beautiful, but needs to loose some fat. The cinematography by Rajeev Ravi is as abstract as the movie. Not many people will appreciate movies like this as its made purely for hard core movie buffs. The songs could have been easily avoided.

Psst -

1)     To fit in to his character, John Abraham, was made to stay awake for 48 hours at a stretch to get dark circles, very visible for smokers. The main reason being that John does not smoke and is a teetotaler in real life. For the movie, he had to take up smoking.

2)     Being a non smoker and Ayesha Takia, being allergic to smoke, It took them several retakes to get their pictures right for the publicity posters of the film which had John smoking straight in to Ayesha’s mouth.

*3)     Rumors of John Abraham’s split with long time girlfriend were put to rest when Anurag decided to include a last minute song sequence featuring both of them. The song, Phook de, however played only after the end credits.

Quotes

1)     “Tum aa rahi ho? Tum jaa rahey ho? Main jaa raha hu; Main aa rahi hu.”

2)     “Tumhey Anniversary main kya gift chahiye? Divorce; Itna budget nahi hai mera.”

3)     “Bidi jaayle waaley Vishal Desh main, yeh cigar gulzar hai.”

Oops- *

Diidn’t notice any oops. Movie was too abstract.