Saturday, September 14, 2013

John Day good for a trailer only


Cast & Crew:
Directed & Written by Ashishor Solomon (Debutant)
Produced by  Anjum Rizvi & K. Asif
Background Score by Sandeep Chowta
Naseeruddin Shah as John Day
Randeep Hooda as ACP Gautam
Elena Kazan as Tabassum Habiba
Vipin Sharma as Shinde
Sharat Saxena as Khan

At a Glance:
Some movies appear to have been made only to make an attractive trailer. Some movies are successfully able to rope in talented actors no matter how poorly scripted they are. Some movies manage to ride on the fame of their producers' previous releases. John Day is "all of the above". A disappointing thriller...no wait...it isnt a thriller at all.

So whose in it?
A limited and talented cast plays convincing roles and give beyond average performances for this much
below average movie.
Naseeruddin as John Day. A talent beyond words and an actor who can pull off any role he likes effortlessly....Shah is amazing as he plays the title character. Bewilderment, despair, confusion and anger....all magically get expressed through his eyes and body language. Getting very few dialogues in the movie, he manages to prove his supreme skills and yet disappoints his fans with his choice of movie this time.
Randeep Hooda as Gautam. A character well written and executed by Hooda. His cold eyes and indifferent tone in voice perfectly depict the disturbed background he comes from. He gets some of the best dialogues and yet you wonder how his awesome performance is wasted.
Sharat Saxena and Vipin Sharma as Khan & Shinde respectively. Both give a sincere performance and are perfect for the characters they play. Saxena has some interesting dialogues (which is odd as to why Dons always are so philosophical, be it bolly or hollywood) and Shinde is the perfect representation of talent tarnished by corruption.
Elena Kazan as Tabassum. Pretty and perfect. Even though her hindi is pathetic, she plays the role of an addict nicely and proves that she isnt only about good looks. She is very convincing and gets decent airtime in the movie.

Sound of Music:
Sandeep Chowta...impresses greatly in the opening title track music but then fails to impress as the movie progresses. The background score, while appropriate, is not able to create the impact and play the role that it usually can in such a movie. But that is not necessarily the music directors fault.

In Conclusion...
So all the characters have been performed excellently in the movie, the dialogues are decent, trailer looks good, so is it a good movie? No. A rather rare occasion where all the ingredients are good or at least seem alright and yet the overall product is a mess. While Ashishor is able to extract good performances, he is unable to give a smooth-flowing narrative to his story. He may be ready to assist directors, but he not ready to execute a movie. The movie tries to be noir, mysterious and unique, but fails in being any of these.

In My Opinion:
I rate it 1.5 out of 5. The only saving grace of this movie are its actors without whom John Day would have been a pointless and boring tale. The first half you may sit through expecting that the second half will be able to clear up the confusion and justify the character build-ups and wow you....but all you end up with...is... "Wow...why did they make such a pointless and boring movie?!"