Jul 24, 2003 03:35 PM
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(Updated Jul 24, 2003 03:43 PM)
On a breezy Saturday morning as I stood at one of the busiest crossings of Delhi, I saw a poster screaming at me. 'Qayamat - A City Under Threat', it proclaimed. The glossy, colorful look of the poster attracted my prolonged attention. I made inquiries and came to know that Harry Baweja, best known for his romantic drama, Dilwale (1994), has now mustered courage enough to Indianize Michael Bay's fast paced action thriller, The Rock (1996). The result is Qayamat.
The Rock starred Sean Connery as an ex-convict who assists a scientist, played by Nicholas Cage, in rescuing hostages who are held captive at Alcatraz by an ex-general. The General, played by Ed Harris, threatens to unleash a nerve gas attack on the city of San Francisco if his demands are not met. He and his associates hold a host of hostages in Alcatraz to pressurize the Government.
Now replace the prison of Alcatraz with some Elphinston Jail (wherever it is?), San Francisco with our very own Mumbai, Sean Connery with Ajay Devgan and Nicholas Cage with newcomer Ashish Chowdhry and lo you get Qayamat. However, three characters, two males and a female replace Ed Harris. Perhaps the director wanted to portray a moll kind of a character made famous in so many of those Ajit movies of yesteryears. Isha Koppikar plays this character to perfection. And yes, among the good guys there is one addition to the original. In comes a CBI officer in the form of Suniel Shetty who leads the initial charge against the baddies. So we have some more scope of patriotic emotions and nationalist fervor.
The film is a classic example of how Indian mainstream directors go overboard when they lay hands on a promising script.
To start with the three antagonists look less like dreaded terrorists and more like some jokers from the local circus. They are made to appear loud and screaming. The dialogues that they speak deem fit to be rendered on a stage, least of all in a full-length feature film. Why such dramatization in exercising the vocal chords? The interaction of the two males with their moll is crude and unbelievable. Equally gauche are their dresses.
The director has tried in vain to delve deep into the scientific jargon of cause and effect of the systems and the deadly virus as depicted in the original. This has been done in order to impart a different look to the film. The trouble is that he has not applied any real thought to the explanation and reasoning thereof. The result is a mediocre product that is dished out to the audience. The Science lab, the virus particles and even the graphics appearing on the gadgets all seem very superficial and mundane. Some reason that a heavy dose of scientific explanation would have perhaps scared away general public from the movie. We should not forget that an average moviegoer in our country does not look for serious heavy kind of stuff in a movie.
Now that is a dichotomy. On one hand, you want to make a thought provoking, scientifically aesthetic film a la Hollywood and yet you want to reach out to the masses residing in Samastipur with such kind of offering. It is clear that you have to choose one option out of the two. But customizing a serious script to cater to the needs of the frontbenchers is not right.
Qayamat is a Hindi movie. So it has to have female leads. But it has been adapted from a Hollywood flick. So the director takes pains to intertwine female protagonists in the film. One of them is the cause of flaring up of the male lead (Ajay Devgan). He is filled with vengeance against the baddies for shooting at her in the past. There is a necessity for this. The Indian audience like when the male protagonists go on a bashing spree, spurred on by a yearning for their lover! Yes, this is the most potent stimulus for our hero to launch into a bone-battering spree.
The second female lead is directly transported to the scene of action, as she happens to be one of the hostages at the Elphinston Jail. Riya Sen has delivered one of the most insipid performances in this role. But why blame her? There was nothing in the role for an actor. It was just a forcefully inserted character just to provide the oomph.
Needless to say, the female leads are wasted in the film. Of the two, the newcomer, Neha Dhupia, has talent but as usual needs a gifted director to bring out her best. And surely better and original scripts.
Perhaps the only actor who has done justice to his role is Ajay Devgan. In the character of Rachit, an ex-baddie who now pines for the love of his life, he was supposed to play a restrained, brooding sort of a guy. And he has come out triumphs in this quest. His intense, smoldering eyes seem to convey perfectly the pain and agony associated with the character of Rachit.
The songs in the film are totally unnecessary in the film. They only serve as annoying interruptions in a basically serious storyline. So much for the sake of enticing the masses!
The action sequences a la Matrix, after some time, seem to annoy you. This is because the action director has employed the special effects in action in each and every fight sequence. In the process, logic has taken a backseat. Just a slight punch from the hero makes the baddie do a summersault in the air!
Remakes also require a fair amount of thinking and research. Perhaps Indian filmmakers are oblivious of this aspect. Qayamat is a testimony to this thought.
