| CULTURE & SOCIETY |
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SPOILERS AHEAD |
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From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 15, Dated 14 April 2012 |
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| CULTURE & SOCIETY |
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SPOILERS AHEAD |
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Lazy Fiction
The Plot
Two newlyweds land in Cape Town. The hardworking, middle class MBA has nailed a job in the diamond big league. The girl has given up all her dreams of social work and come to support him, like every wife should. The diamond business is glamorous. Every time they strike a deal, they party. The evil boss and the vamp make sure the boy is seduced into the champagne room and the girl is left alone at home. There’s also a Iago in the mix. And then the boy stumbles upon a scandal. At which point he is given a blue pill/red pill option. He wakes up from the dream to the dirty underbelly of success, to see how it feeds on the blood of the innocent. His life under threat, he continues to work there. And looks for a way out.
By Mona J
+10 To Manish Choudhary. He plays the brilliant, evil honcho of a diamond company. The character and the performance kept reminding us of The Architect (The Matrix Reloaded) and John Milton (The Devil’s Advocate).
-4 To Kunal Khemu. Dude, what happened? You were one child actor everybody was waiting for, to grow up in the industry.
-8 To All The Female Characters In The Film. Every one of them was written with a pretty face and a pout. Either they were sad and pouty. Or seductive and pouty.
-6 To The Pacing. The half before the interval is not the step child. Minus four to the over simplified price negotiation sequence to establish how smart a salesman Khemu is. Deduct another four for oversimplifying everything for the audience. It’s hard to believe the characters belong in that universe from the way they speak.
-4 To The Writer for a film that is looser than my sweater after I lent it to an elephant. Minus four to the climax monologue! Because despite the plot’s predictability, that Orwellian twist was a good one. Only to be stubbed by the angry monologue instead of a flashback showing Khemu make a deal with Interpol.
+4 To The Music. It makes for a great background track for montages of panshots of pouting women and partying men.
+3 For Showing Smoking Rather Well, associating it with a high stress work environment and not wasting it for style purposes.
-2 Because All Of This Could’ve Been Avoided if they had just picked up a DVD of The Firm, based on the John Grisham novel.
monaatmovies@gmail.com
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