Movie Review – Ghanchakkar (2013)

2013 07 02 Ghanchakkar

Movies have always been a passion for me since my childhood days and over the last so many years; I have seen countless movies – Hindi, English, Marathi, Foreign Language and Regional Language.  I believe cinema has no language and each movie conveys something to you. At times, you may agree and accept what is conveyed. At times you may not. However we continue to watch movies. When I review movies, I am not very critical as each movie is a story told from the perspective of the few people who made the movie. It is their version of the story. Naturally the story excites them as they make an effort to tell us their interpretation. Our personal bias should not in any ways take away from the people who have put in tremendous efforts in making a movie for us to see.

On Saturday 29th June, I watched the latest Bollywood offering – Ghanchakkar. Let me make an attempt to review the movie in sections:

  1. The Crew
    1. Produced By – Ronnie Screwvala and Siddharth Roy Kapur
    2. Directed by – Raj Kumar Gupta
    3. Music – Amit Trivedi
    4. Cast – Emraan Hashmi (Sanju), Vidya Balan (Neetu), Rajesh Sharma (Pandit) and Namit Das (Idris)
  2. The Plot – Sanju, Pandit and Idris rob a bank – 35 crores. And they give it for safekeeping to Sanju till the matter cools down. When Pandit and Idris contact Sanju after three months, he refuses to know them. During this period, he has met with an accident and suffers from partial memory loss, even forgetting where he has kept the looted amount. The rest of the movie revolves around the idea of trying to get Sanju to remember the location of the stored money. It involves some sub-plots, some of which are funny, some repetitive and some not needed.
  3. The Songs – The title track ‘Ghanchakkar Babu’ and ‘Allah Meherbaan’ are nice and have a lot of energy. Both the songs have been sung well and get one foot tapping almost immediately. ‘Jholuram Padhare’ was a song I was looking forward too but it never came up on the big screen.
  4. Personal Opinion – The movie is nice till the interval. It flows well. As an audience, I could accept the bank being looted and Sanju going through an accident resulting in a memory loss. However the story slacks post interval. You expect the story to make a few twists and turns around your assumptions but it delivers on a totally different tangent. Honestly, I never expected the climax to be what was presented. It felt like being cheated not knowing about characters who would suddenly throw up at the end. The movie had a nice feeling throughout but becomes gruesome in the last 15-20 minutes. I could not fathom the logic or the end. Though I must say that I do not consider it as a bad movie. Just that it had the potential to be a good movie (especially with the story up to the interval going strong) but fails to deliver. Overall, there are a few good laughs embedded in the movie. It’s a good one time watch. And I enjoyed the songs. Emraan Hashmi and Vidya Balan are good. There is enough for Emraan to show his acting skills and he delivers modestly. There is not enough for Vidya but she is good in whatever she attempts. Rajesh and Namit are good but their characters lack depth as well as proper presentation.
  5. Rating – 2.5/5
  6. P.S. – The location of the ABI bank that is looted in the movie is about 2 minutes walking distance from my office in the same building complex (Next to Nency Colony, Borivali East). I had the opportunity to watch the set being constructed and then dismantled very efficiently in a matter just a few days. All the shooting was carried out post mid-night and done indoors to notice any of the actors. But yes, there is some sense of belonging.

Disclaimer – All opinions expressed above are personal and in no ways meant to criticize the efforts and hard work put in by the crew.

–Sachin

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2013 07 02 Ghanchakkar 1

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