DOBARA (2004)

Director: Shashi Ranjan
Producer: Shashi Ranjan and Anu Ranjan
Cast: Jackie Shroff, Raveena Tandon and Mahima Chaudhary

RS RATING: 4/10

Background:
It is a fallacy to presume that filmmakers from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) make fabulous films with a convincing storyline. Writer-director Shashi Ranjan annihilates the myth that people from India’s premier filmmaking institute can stir up good cinema.

Shashi Ranjan - a failed actor himself who had sought refuge in the political brouhaha, demonstrating against vulgar films and later becoming a part of actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha’s coterie - comes up with an implausible script where he takes the audience for granted. While many of his colleagues like David Dhawan question the intelligence of the audience, Ranjan thinks that the audience’s job is to think about what is happening in his film…

Synopsis:
Ranvir Sehgal (Jackie Shroff) is a poet/writer turned into a bad scriptwriter of the on going television serials on Indian television. He is happily married to Dr Anjali (Mahima Chaudhary), a psychiatrist.

Suddenly, Ria Deshmukh (Raveena Tandon), his ex-lover, who has been in a mental hospital for 14 years, escapes from the mental asylum where strangely men and women are kept together.

Ria and Ranvir have watched Ek Duje Ke Liye together over a million times and have sworn love for each other apart from remembering every dialogue in the film. One day Ranvir has an offer to go for further studies to the UCLA and Ria is upset. Now one has to understand from flashbacks that this is the reason why Ria tried to commit suicide. There is no proper reference to this scene. A clear editing error... or overconfidence in the script from the director.

After running away Ria wants Ranvir back in her life. She has a child from him as well which he is not aware of. Ranvir and Anjali had a son Rohit who died of cancer and from that day Ranvir has been missing his son. When he learns that even Ria has a son from him, he runs for the child accompanying Ria to Goa after she meets him and tells him that she wants him back.

Anjali is upset about the happenings and is destroyed when Ranvir tells her of his other son. She also rushes to Goa by plane, while Ria and Ranvir are going by road - because Ria has a fear for heights.

Anjali meets an actor (Muammar Rana) on the way in the plane and confides in him. He tries to take advantage of her loneliness. She brushes him off with a line “I am lonely, not loose.”

Later Anjali, Ria and Ranvir meet at a hotel lobby and then proceed to meet Ria and Ranvir’s son together. The film instead of picking up here turns into an unintentional comedy where people laugh instead of crying.

Critique:
The film reminds you of Gulzar’s Ijaazat which too had a twist like O’Henry’s tales where there were three protagonists in the film Mahinder, Maya and Sudha, where Mahinder is forced to marry Sudha when Maya disappears and hell breaks loose when she resurfaces. While Ijaazat had a very sensitive approach towards the poignant impasse between the three and dealt with the conjugal lives of the middle-class in India, the vignettes in Dobaara aren’t authentic enough.

There is no justification for why things are moving at a certain manner. Multiple flashbacks, umpteen references to Ek Duje Ke Liye and the narrative do not appropriately weave into the reminiscences of the past, from the present.

Raveena Tandon’s first scene in the film and her talk with Kuki (Hrajesh Virjee) is tediously long. It obliterates the basics of her character. Still the pretty actress manages to work hard and bring about a lot of plausibility and generates interest into her character. She holds up the film well given a role akin to that of Rebecca from Daphne du Maurier’s classic.

Jackie Shroff is good, but looks old. Jaggu Dada needs to even talk to his dentist and get his teeth cleaned… else stop the directors from taking close-ups of his mouth apart from his face. He has spent over 21 years in films and it shows in his performance and look as well.

Mahima Chaudhary has an interesting role and is quite glamorous in the film as well. Muammar Rana is wasted in the film as an actor. Well, he does have a voice like Akshay Kumar, but behaves as dumb as the Indian action Jackson often does. He is also shown to be a womanizer.

Hrajesh Virjee and Seema Biswas as the matron of the mental hospital are also wasted. Hrajesh has the most inane dialogues to mouth. Well, mad people need not keep talking rubbish all the while.

The camerawork is average, the sets are not up to the mark and a lot of time is wasted on traveling by road. Someone should tell Shashi Ranjan that the distance between Mumbai and Goa is not much and can be covered in 12 hours. Why does he need two nights of stopover? To drag the film for three hours? Well, well.

The screenplay is very amateurish and hence hampers the growth of the film as well as the characters. Gulshan Grover has been deliberately put into an unnecessarily loud truck driver in the film as well. The first half is too slow and the second half is just about tolerable. Shashi Ranjan needs another crash course in filmmaking.

Conclusion:
It could have been better if Shashi Ranjan had shown references to Ijaazat instead of Ek Duje Ke Liye. At least, it could have paid respect to the inspiration.

Reviewed by: Qamar Zaman

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