By Hindustan Times
Direction: Ram Gopal Varma
Actors: Mahie Gill, Deepak Dobriyal
Rating: **
Moving images can cause a genuine migraine to some. At least the ones in this film could. Swinging at the speed of light, the camera here slips between the legs, under the skirt, is obsessed with the female knee, it licks the derriere, is stuck to the face, then planted under the breasts, over the fan, under the building…. Your head spins. Literally.
There are A-grade movies (mostly determined by popularity of filmstars in them, and therefore their budgets). There are B-grade movies (adorably low on tension, high on tackiness). Over the past few years, Varma's movies have largely fallen into neither: Raktacharitra 1, 2, Darling, Contract, Aag, Agyaat, Phoonk 1, 2…. They've deserved a category entirely of their own (V-grade? Maybe!).
This is still the first film from the director, since Sarkar Raj (2008), which comes with a script. Or at least an appealing story line. The shaking camera's also placed right at the heart of India's pop-culture capital: a quasi-independent republic called Andheri.
A young girl moves into suburban Mumbai from Chandigarh (I know, it's ‘Chandy', as North Indians with sweet penchant for shortened names call it). Her new home, where she wants to make it big in films, is of course the proverbial city of dreams. Too soon, she figures, like millions of others, her chosen city probably resides in people's dreams alone. It's a nightmare in real life.
Her apartment block, perennially under construction, like the rest of Mumbai, is pretty much an over-priced dump. It's hard enough to break into Bollywood. Random filmmakers make lame passes at her ("Before making a movie, it's important for a director to get into a 'comfort zone' with his actors." Huh, right!).