Date: 04 February 2005, 10.30 am.
Place: Kauveri Theatre, Bangalore
Movie: “SHABD”
Cast: Trying Hard
Direction: Kinda Slick but no Kick.
Rating: Puhleeez…
HELLLLOOOO, why the one-and-a-half generous stars of Shabd which actually leaves the viewer wordless? Well, that’s purely for debutante director Leena Yadav’s attempt to articulate something (strange) about a Booker prize-winning novelist’s effort to vault over a writer’s block.
Hmmm, otherwise this is an “Oh-NO!”.
Toddle off with your poodle, then, with Sanjay Dutt (puffing Cigarettes Light), Aishwarya Rai (as infuriatingly fake as an 11-Rupee note) and Zayed Khan (Hey dude, get real, the oohhs and aahhs from the ladies notwithstanding).
Ever so furiously, throughout the reel, Mr. Booker bangs away at an antique typewriter. Meanwhile, special effects or letters of the alphabet keep drip dropping on your head.
Snore.
Next: Writerji connives an illicit romance between his fake-o-wife and the Sardar joke-cracking dude, in order to construct a nah-nah narrative for his next novel. Which incidentally, The Walrus publishers (big brothers of Penguin?) refuse to accept. Gasp. An exercise in futility this, at long last, the mad mad writer’s confined to a lunatic asylum.
Actually, you might go loony yourself. At least I did. Forewarned is Forearmed.
