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at 03:15:11 am on June 3, 2008
What’s made of wood, will burn quickly. Tagore’s review of Woodstock Villa.
Well, I know that I choose to watch what I do, and then review those which I choose to review. So I had decided that I was going to watch ‘Woodstock Villa’ for one reason only – there was a buzz about Anupam and Kiron Kher’s son Sikander Kher making his debut. With all fairness, I said to myself ‘it is in his genes. It is running in his blood, he is worth watching’. So I set off to watch the film. I have always maintained that Sanjay Gupta is all style and no substance, so I was sure that this watch was purely to go and see the potentially new ‘gift’ to the Bollywood film industry. There are plus points and there are negatives. The plus point of the experience was that the film was just about 90 minutes long. For the rest, read on.
Reel Life – A man (Sikander) comes to India from the US, for action and spice. He lives in a fancy apartment with a great view, but is running low on cash – literally counts the coins on a table (yeah and he lives in this fancy apartment). He is constantly being nagged by his Landlord to pay up the rent. Hhhhmmm!!! Very convincing. Then comes the money lender, who lends funds to the guy and is constantly beating him up as a reminder, that the guys owes him money. Our man is seen in every night club, dressed swanky and drinking (those coins go a long way in India I guess). Then one fine day, in walks a girl into his life. He tries hitting on her, she doesn’t care, tells him to not even think about it. She drops him home on the first day she meets him and then what do you know? A few days later, she turns up at his door with a proposal, and that is to kidnap her, only so that she can find out if her husband really loves her and would be willing to pay up the ransom money (aaahh!! Stupidity, 70s thinking re-packaged by Mr. Gupta). So this kid does just that and when he goes out to get the money, he comes home to find his victim murdered. All hell breaks loose and he wants to flea the city after getting rid of the body. So there he is, at the Mumbai airport ready to board a flight to Bangalore. While waiting in the lounge, he realizes that there is a music video being played on the TVs and the girl in the video is the girl who is supposedly dead. Here’s the fun bit. The girl just died like a day ago or perhaps that same day, and he is so shocked to see her in a music video that he doesn’t board the flight and instead goes to see if the body is still there where he hid it!!!!! What was he thinking? That she became alive and did the music video after she was murdered? Can someone please tell the writer, the director and the producer, that a music video is usually shot over a few days, then there is the post production period and then the actual air dates. In no way is it to be assumed that the person in the video must have acted in it, the day before or morning of it being aired. Some serious intelligence there. Anyway, that is the interval part, which supposedly is meant to shock you. Eh some people left the theater and never came back. After interval there are very predictable twist and turns, typical of a Bollywood thriller going wrong.
Real Life – I was struggling to find human messages in this film. Whenever I write this section of my review, I am very passionate and high. I love to use this medium to remind people of simple ‘real life’ messages too. With this one, I sound rather bored when I say, ‘oh yeah, do not cheat on your spouses’ (though I really mean that, this film is the worst example to use on that). More interestingly I would like to tell my NRI readers, that ‘hey if you want to leave the west and go to India, please note that you need to make sure that you have enough money, else you might end up borrowing from bad people’. (yawn)
Cinematically – Sikander is NOT happening. Sorry to say this. Atleast based on this film, he is NOT. His introduction, though meant to be lavish, had absolutely NO relevance to the film or the character. This is where I blame Sanjay Gupta. He has all the toys in the world and thinks he can take us for granted. Remember the pathetic last story in Dus Kahaniyaan? The Sunil Shetty and Sunjay Dutt story? All good technical stuff and that was it. Someone has a new toy, uses it stupidly and subjects us to it. This is the same for Sikander’s entry. I wish he had not chosen this as his debut film. Bad, bad choice. The girl reminds me of one other actress – Nisha Kothari. Sorry, but she is that bad too. The direction was way to wrong, blame it on the director or on Sikander, but the scenes were handled badly, there was plastic emotions, man this was really bad. Predictable edits, very predictable story line. My only serious question about this is to Anupam and Kiron Kher “Did you guys not care enough to make sure that Sikander was choosing the right film as a debut?”. In today’s age when so much is being made to launch new people, why didn’t you guys take care of this? I have no idea of what Harry Baweja is going to be. Will he be a Hrithik? I personally do not think so, but look at the canvas of his launch? I am not talking money here, I am talking about an impact, and very unfortunately, Woodstock Villa has left a negative impact on Sikander’s career. If at all you are interested in seeing Sikander, watch this film on DVD.
Tagore Almeida is based out of lovely Dubai. He is a technologist by day, and a peace-seeker too. Read more about him at www.tagorealmeida.com.
