Mar 06, 2010 05:11 PM
2220 Views
Road, Movie is a typical ‘Indian’ film festival movie. The story is painfully slow, and nothing much really happens - but some brilliantly shot sequences of Rajasthan and Kutch almost makes you forget these very basic flaws.
But to begin at the beginning, Abhay is the son of a bald, herbal hair oil businessman. After getting bored at one Beauty Products exhibition - Abhay decides that he does not want to be in his father’s business. He persuades one his father’s customers to allow him to ferry the customers’ old truck across a 6 day journey. On this journey, a smart aleck young boy, a worldly wise old man and a young widow also join Abhay in his truck. Abhay also discovers that the truck is actually a movie projector on wheels. After being waylaid by a corrupt cop, after one surreal insta-fair, after 2 open air movie shows, after a one night stand, and after an encounter with a water mafia don - Abhay reaches his destination and the movie comes to an end.
As a list, this sounds long but in the movie, the pace is painfully slow. Also, many of the sequences like the ‘insta-fair’ and the encounter with the water mafia don are blatantly bizarre. Anyone remotely familiar with rural India, can only scoff at these scenes. But the movie is very clearly targeted for westerners, as is also evidenced by the clunky dialogue. And perhaps most detrimentally, there is no visible progression in Abhay’s character - his journey is too flat-lined to involve the audience.
But on the positive side, the movie has such brilliant cinematography, that almost every shot of the movie could be printed and framed. The background track also does a brilliant job of highlighting both the ‘activity’ of the group, as well as the ‘stillness’ of the landscape. Similarly for the art direction, right from the truck, to the fair, to the various other locations - each of them strike us as being completely genuine.
As for the acting, Mohd Faisal as the young boy, Tanishtha Chatterjee as the widow, Virendra Saxena and Yashpal Sharma are good. Not much happens to Abhay Deol’s character, and consequently his acting is also ok - but, Satish Kaushik as the wise old man steals the show. Credit should be given for his perfect casting, but whether he is throwing a tantrum, whether he is sleepily delivering his one liners or his child like enjoyment of movies - Satish Kaushik is brilliant. Because it’s anemic plot we would not recommend this movie, but for its brilliant cinematography, for a great performance by Satish Kaushik and for a very realistic 2 hour Rajasthan trip.
We give Road Movie, 2.5 out of 5.
