Aug 01, 2006 10:24 AM
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If William Shakespeare were to be resurrected into this world to witness his play being adapted on screen by Vishal Bhardwaj, he would have opted to return to the graveyard immediately.
Yes, that’s how wrong Vishal Bhardwaj has gone in his adaption of OTHELLO.The film just draaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggssssss unnecessarily through Bhojpuri film type songs, unwanted poetics, a wandering story line and some really slooowww motion sequences where the director is trying something but not getting anywhere.
The story is about about ambition, jealousy, astuteness, love and suspicion. Vishal does capture the essence of the story well and the performances truly stand out. The story is set in rural U.P.(actually, Wai,yet again) and the characters speak a typical bhaiya accent with a lot of slang and vulgarity which do have a good effect to an extent. But none of this is supported by the director’s works as he fondles with the script and adds all the unnecessary ingredients to make this a messy recipe.
The pace is extremely sluggish. This movie should’ve been just an hour in duration. But he adds around 5-6 songs that are distasteful and undoubtedly the worst work of the legendary Gulzar who has surely slept these nights in sheer disbelief of his own work. Then there are these sequences that have been shot in a dreamy slow motion when its not really required…. Add to that, a couple of scenes of some poetry that pops out of nowhere like a spaceship above the Wankhede stadium during worldcup finals.
Shakespeare used poetry. That was an era of poets and writers. Today, poetry itself is not widely appreciated as before and that too in a film that had to be fast paced without any music.
Devgan and Kareena’s love story is alright but the lack of faith and trust in that couple is something that’s not digestible.
Saif Khan plays the evil character that’s torn down with jealousy to gain the position of Omkara’s successor who is now Vivek Oberoi. His plots are malicious and his performance sways brilliantly from comical to sarcastic to villainous to astute. He portrays a range of emotions throughout the movie and stands out in this otherwise terrific cast of great actors.
Devgan is his usual self with reflections of his style of acting seen in Company. Kareena is ok but Konkana Sen impresses yet again with a totally different dialect and great confidence in this otherwise unconventional role. Naseeruddin Shah is quite frankly……… WASTED. His role is very important but never quite gets the director’s attention. An actor of his caliber does deserve much more screen presence when the film could really do with some of it. Bipasha does nothing but dance and sing around Gundasand drunk policemen.Glamorous but wasted again. Vivek Oberoi justifies his role well and the significant actors too do a good job.
The film does have its share of a few intense scenes and some good dialogues too but these few good bits are overpowered by the other aspects of the movie. Apart from that, we have been watching so many movies based on inter-gang rivalry and plotting and extra marital affairs and the likes that even an adaptation of a Shakespearean play doesn’t really excite.
Summarizing it…….. the film’s direction is flawed but the good performances leave a mark and sadly but truly, that’s all you take back home from this movie.
6.081 on a scale of 1-10.
